The use of digital resources in teaching during the pandemic: What type of learning have they promoted?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic induced an accelerated transition to digital teaching in all countries. We ask ourselves whether this massive use of digital resources promoted student–centred, dialogical, and multimodal teaching, as shown in some experimental studies, or whether, on the contrary, these resources were used only as a substitute for the teacher’s voice, maintaining content-centred teaching. We analysed 269 activities carried out during the lockdown by teachers in Spain through the System of Analysis of Teaching Activities. This analysis system considered the resources used and the learning they promoted within activities. In general, the activities were content-centred independently of the resource used. However, in a few cases, activities were student–centred. The greatest systematic difference between the two types of activities was related to who managed these resources. Only when the student managed the digital resources were the activities student-centred. Conversely, when the tasks were content-centred, teachers managed the resources. These results indicate the need to achieve proven ICT integration in education, which in turn requires a boost in teacher training aimed at both familiarising teachers with the use of digital resources and, above all, promoting a change in teachers’ conceptions about their use.