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Necessary or unnecessary digital literacy

in university teacher training caused by

COVID-19: Experiences of CESCIJUC

teachers

La alfabetización digital necesaria o innecesaria en la

formación del docente universitario ocasionada por el

COVID-19: Experiencias de docentes de CESCIJUC

David Alfredo Domínguez Pérez*

Francisca Susana Callejas Ángeles*

Juan García González*

Abstract

The distance modality was the only way to continue with the educational

cycle, due to the health contingency, I rethink whether university teachers

should also know and manage the new digital applications, to turn them

into teaching tools and environments that favor the learning process, a This

process is called digital literacy; For this, a quantitative-qualitative

research was carried out with an analytical and descriptive approach at

Centro de Estudios Superiores en Ciencias Jurídicas y Criminológicas

(Cescijuc), to teachers who study the Master in Pedagogy of the Niños

Héroes campus in Mexico City, Only those who taught at a higher level

were selected, being 152, the objectives of this research work are to know

if they have a level of digital literacy and how the situation of continuing

Doctor, Centro de Estudios Superiores en Ciencias

Jurídicas y Criminológicas, Mexico City, Mexico,

daviddominguezcescijuc@gmail.com,

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5758-3030

Doctor, Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros, Mexico

City, Centro de Estudios Superiores en Ciencias Jurídicas y

Criminológicas, francisca.callejas@aefcm.gob.mx,

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6095-4143

Ph.D., Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros, Mexico

City, juan.gutierrez@aefcm.gob.mx,

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5132-7853

Article

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classes at a distance affected them; As a result, the educational institution

does not require any knowledge in digital applications and tools from its

teachers, it was found that an important factor is the older the teacher, the

less is its use and knowledge, coupled with the little interest in learning

them because they do not see the need to use them in a face-to-face

modality, now it must be considered as part of the teaching profile.

Key words: digital literacy, contingency, digital skills, teacher training

Resumen

La modalidad a distancia fue la única forma de continuar con el ciclo

educativo, por la contingencia sanitaria, replanteo si los docentes

universitarios también deben conocer y manejar las nuevas aplicaciones

digitales, para convertirlos en herramientas y entornos didácticos que

favorezcan el proceso de aprendizaje, a este proceso se le llama

alfabetización digital; para lo cual se hizo una investigación cuantitativo-

cualitativo con un enfoque analítico y descriptivo en el Centro de Estudios

Superiores en Ciencias Jurídicas y Criminológicas (Cescijuc), a profesores

que estudian la Maestría en Pedagogía del plantel Niños Héroes en la

Ciudad de México, se seleccionaron solo los que imparten clase a nivel

superior siendo 152, los objetivos de este trabajo de investigación son

conocer si poseen un nivel de alfabetización digital y como les afecto la

situación de dar continuidad a las clases en la distancia; resultado la

institución educativa no exige ningún conocimiento en aplicaciones y

herramientas digitales a sus profesores, se encontró que un factor

importante es a mayor edad del docente menor es su uso y conocimiento,

aunado al poco interés en aprenderlas por no ver la necesidad de usarlas en

una modalidad presencial, ahora se debe considerar como parte del perfil

docente.

Palabras clave: alfabetización digital, contingencia, habilidades digitales,

formación docente

Introduction

Currently teaching throughout the country has had a great

transformation in a short period of time from March 19, 2020

originated by the pandemic teaching function in these times of

pandemic has not been easy, since they had to change the way of

teaching classes in the classroom mode to move to the use of

technology continuing at a distance, Although it is mentioned that

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teachers must have a series of digital skills according to the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) as technological literacy and attitude towards

information and communication technologies (ICT), these elements

are important in a teacher who teaches at the higher level, to know

how to use these digital skills in their teaching given its importance

both labor and social; It is necessary that teachers know not only how

to use the computer but also its applications and tools, higher

education institutions have left this situation very free, since it is not

a requirement in their teaching profile, in the trainings are not always

mandatory, but it is important that they begin to generate programs

for the training of new teachers, who are digitally literate. The

assimilation of technology varies in each teacher, given their attitude

towards change and their knowledge of it; at the time the literacy

process meant a social change, a great challenge and aimed to move

towards equal opportunities, based on the principle of openness and

accessibility to knowledge: Therefore, the so-called technological or

digital literacy, should be constituted as another change of attitude

that promotes not only to know how to use it, but also to manage

innovation to rethink the school structure (Trujillo et al, 2011); in

itself must comply with being useful for the model of life that

corresponds to its group and community, which in the beginning was

called functional literacy (Contreras, 2001).

Gutiérrez (2003) considers technological literacy as an integrated

and complex process involving people, ideas, devices and

organization to analyze problems and design, propose, implement,

evaluate and arbitrate solutions to those problems related to any

aspect of learning. Rondón (2011) refers to multiple literacy as a

complex variant supported by electronic and digital supports in

comparison with printed materials. Shapiro & Hudhese (1996 cited

in Bawden, 2002) structure digital literacy in dimensions: I) tool

literacy, knowledge and use of information technology tools

including the handling of hardware, software, programs and

multimedia; II) resource literacy, knowledge of the forms and

methods of access to computer resources, especially the Internet; III)

socio-structural literacy understanding of the social situation and the

production of information; IV) research literacy, use of the Internet

for research and academic work; V) publication literacy, ability to

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disseminate and publish information; VI) emerging technologies

literacy, ability to understand innovations and consequently make

better decisions regarding new technologies; VII) critical literacy,

ability to efficiently evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of ICTs.

Given the misinterpretation of digital literacy, this is reduced to

information or computer literacy, which sees the technological part,

is to take control of the computer, to have some certainty about the

terms and their meanings, is to know what can and cannot be done

with a computer (Morgan, 1998), which is why certain sectors of

teachers refuse to use it in their classes or with their students. Digital

literacy is already a basic requirement both in learning and in

working life; it has ceased to be a luxury or a fad to become a vital

necessity (González & Chaires, 2012). However, the implementation

processes of ICT and digital literacy are slow in their results, given

many determinants such as: the resistance to change presented by

certain sectors of educators, the lack of budget by universities to

implement training programs; the lack of human resources for a

successful implementation. Díaz, Padilla and Morán (2009) point out

that the introduction of ICT in education does not in itself guarantee

inclusion or social equity, nor does it improve quality or educational

innovation; Luna (2010) states that the level of ignorance of new

technologies prevents people from accessing the benefits of ICT,

80% of Mexicans are digitally illiterate, only between 10 and 15%

of the population regularly uses ICT tools and benefits, due to high

costs, lack of infrastructure and lack of learning in them.

Marqués (2008) observed that the motivation of teachers to achieve

a positive attitude towards innovation with ICT can increase as their

didactic instrumental training increases, since they discover effective

models in the use of ICT, which they can reproduce without

difficulty in their context, really supporting their teaching work; the

basic digital teaching skills that they should have are: I) basic

knowledge of the computer system (which is hardware, software,

internet, social networks, blogs, etc.); II) basic management in the

use of computer administration, (management of files, folders,

installation of programs and applications and antivirus); III) use of

applications (such as word processing, spreadsheet, presentations

and databases); IV) knowing how to search and select information

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on the internet; V) use of email, VI) generation, capture and

processing of digital images such as text scanning; VII) preparation

of multimedia documents.

According to Adell (2006), although educational institutions invest

in ICT so that they become part of the integration in the learning

media that teachers can use, it was observed that it is a process that

takes 3 to 5 years to give measurable results, due to the slow

assimilation process, which he proposed to divide into phases: 1st

phase is the access phase, which consists of learning the basic use of

ICT, which takes at least a year; 2nd phase is the adoption phase,

where they use computers to do the same as they did without them,

(they use the cannon and PowerPoint replacing the whiteboard),

which has nothing of didactic innovation; 3rd phase the adaptation

phase, technology is integrated into traditional practices, but

increasing productivity, which is seen in the pace at which students

produce their school work and research; 4th phase: appropriation,

when they experiment with new ways of working didactically,

opening up to possibilities that would not be possible without

technology, such as virtual tours (where they take a GPS and a digital

camera, elaborate and edit the material to present it on some internet

site); 5th phase: innovation, using technology in ways that had not

been used before, such as generating applications that simulate

dissections of certain parts of the human body, or of an animal,

without having to do it physically for medical and veterinary

students.

When a university adopts a set of standards to determine how to

integrate technology into its programs to initiate digital literacy, it is

important that the teacher education area participate in the planning

process, taking into account its own conditions, culture and context.

Materials and methods

In this project we chose to conduct it within the framework of the

quantitative-qualitative paradigm with an analytical and descriptive

approach, following Fernandez, Garcia and Perez (2014) on a mixed

methodology, combining the quantitative-qualitative parts of the

research to obtain more information and contrast in different ways,

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the population size was established as 250 first, second and third

semester students of the Master's Degree in Pedagogy of CESCIJUC

from 6 groups corresponding to the 2019 to 2020 cycles of the Niños

Héroes campus, located in the colonia Doctores in the Cuauhtémoc

district of Mexico City, for the study a margin of error of 5% with a

confidence level of 95% was used, The sample of152 teachers who

teach at the higher level in CESCIJUC was selected, taking Medina

et al. (2013) suggests that a methodology that integrates a

quantitative-qualitative vision based on a questionnaire serves to

optimize validity and reliability, Therefore, to collect the

information, a questionnaire was used electronically through the

Google Forms application that was applied from April 5 to May 15,

2020, whose items were closed (with a predetermined response) and

open (to leave a personal wording of the interviewee), the first stage

of the questionnaire are general data such as age, sex, teaching

seniority and marital status; The second part refers to their formal or

informal training; the third part is to know their management of

applications and/or digital tools such as Microsoft Office (including

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access), the management of

communication tools such as emails, instant messaging, social

networking, videoconferencing and educational platform, while

knowing which is the most used; the fourth part is how the continuity

of their class was given and how much it affected them, especially

the part of the online classes; the information was analyzed from

May 17 to 25 of this year.

Results

In the first part of the project, general data was collected: 52% are

women and 48% men. Their marital status 53% married, 35% single

and 12% divorced. In terms of age, 24% are teachers between 25

and 35 years old, 46% are between 35 and 45 years old, 16% are

between 45 and 55 years old and 14% are older than 55 years old,

Seniority of teachers 1 to 5 years 16%, 5 to 10 years 30%, 10 to 15

years 26%, more than 15 years 28%.

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In the second part, we inquired about their digital training: 100%

mentioned that the educational institution does not require any

digital training, knowledge or skills.

If they have taken any formal course, 68% have not taken any course,

while 32% mentioned that they have taken a course and even have a

certificate.

On how recently the course was taken 70% are more than 3 years

old, 16% two years old and 14% one year or less

In the form in which they learned informally 50% by the support of

a friend, 35% are self-taught and 15% are both.

In the third part, their level of knowledge of certain digital

applications and tools was reviewed, with Microsoft Office

applications being the first to be reviewed.

Table 1

Microsoft Office Management (before the contingency)

Application

None

basic

Medium

Advanced

Word

68%

17%

Excel

12%

77%

PowerPoint

13%

Access

As for the relationship between age and level of management, there

is a high correlation between age and management of digital

applications, where teachers between 25 to 35 years old are those

who best manage and know them, while teachers over 55 years old

are the ones who know how to use them the least.

Use of digital tools and applications to support teaching in

communication, videoconferencing and digital platforms.

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Table 2:

Use of communication tools and applications, videoconferencing

and platform for teaching (before the contingency)

Tool/ Application

Yes

E-mail address

75%

Social networks

55%

45%

72%

28%

Videoconference

12%

88%

Educational platform

11%

89%

The 47% have used some tool and/or application to support

teaching, the most used personal emails are Yahoo and Gmail; the

social network they use the most is Facebook, the

videoconferencing application they use is Zoom and the educational

platform they use is Google Classroom.

Table 3

use of communication and videoconferencing tools and applications

for non-educational activities (before the contingency)

Application

Laboral

Social

Entertainment

yes

Mail

85%

20%

Social network

30%

20%

75%

84%

16%

85%

20%

Videoconference

10%

12%

88%

91%

It also indicates that they use them for other activities such as work

(which does not include education) or social activities, 52% use

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these applications for work, 54% for social activities and 46% for

entertainment.

In the fourth part, how did the change of scenario from face-to-face

to distance affect 90% of them, if it took them by surprise, and 10%

not so much, since they said they had experience in the virtual

modality?

In terms of Internet connectivity, 40% had to invest in a better

Internet connection, 60% continued with the one they had.

It was necessary to invest in a technological device, 35% had to

upgrade their equipment, 20% bought another equipment and 45%

continued with the one they had.

Of those who needed to purchase other equipment, 45% were a

webcam, 20% a laptop, 22% a scanner, 13% a smartphone.

For those who answered yes, the institution told them which

application to use for online classes was BigBlueButton; for those

who answered no, it was because they had to do other activities such

as: making tests, wall newspaper and articles related to a subject

they were teaching.

Of those who had an online class, they were asked

100% of online classes are asynchronous, recorded and reviewed

before uploading to the platform for student review.

72% had to set up a place to record or teach the class, while 28% did

not.

67% had to adjust schedules to teach or record the class, 33% were

not affected.

How did you learn to use the application to teach online classes,

75% of them were through trial and error experience, 15% with the

explanation given by the institution understood how to use it, 10%

still have a lot of problems to record and send

If I had known that in order to continue teaching I would need to

have certain skills in the use of applications and digital tools, I

would have learned to use them. 85% answered yes, 15% said that

they already knew how to use them adequately.

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Discussion

The teachers of the institution who teach at the higher education

level and who are between 25 and 45 years old represent 70% have

some digital literacy derived from their work, or because they had

to make the transition, but those aged 45 or older had training

processes in which these digital applications were not necessary or

did not exist, although some had knowledge they did not give any

relevance because they considered it somewhat unnecessary, either

by disinterest, lack of information or perception of little utility, from

this perspective we can find an important differentiation between

the level of appropriation that teachers have according to their age.

It is important to point out that although a good part of the teachers

make use of daily digital communication media, access social

networks, search and track information, they are still not able to

consolidate their processes of digital knowledge construction, since

training and daily use of these are necessary for their empowerment

as users; From this perspective, teachers who have managed to have

a limited use of the technological tools within their reach, because

although they make basic use of them, they do not manage, due to

lack of knowledge, lack of training, lack of knowledge about the

capabilities of these and factors specific to their professional life, to

develop and exploit these tools to the fullest.

It is important to note that there is a marked difference between the

perception that teachers have in the use of digital media for

communication and leisure purposes in relation to the potential that

these may have in the development of their teaching activity, if we

observe the results of the applied instrument, we find that most

teachers make use of social networks and messaging applications,

which have the possibility in conjunction with some others such as

office or Google to develop academic activities, however only a

daily personal communicative use of these is made; for a small

portion of teachers these elements can even be considered as

distractions in the academic development of their students.

It is therefore necessary to build from higher education centers,

training programs and even digital literacy programs that allow their

teachers the knowledge and appropriation of the tools that allow

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them to develop their classes in a more accessible way and with the

possibility of expanding the knowledge environments to digital

spaces that otherwise might be inaccessible to students.

Digital literacy programs will be of little use if the authorities and

academic areas do not provide access to technological resources,

and if they do not have the time and support necessary to apply the

knowledge and skills that teachers have acquired in their training

process, for which a training model based on the particular needs of

each university and the time availability of the teacher can work.

University teachers must be prepared to support their students to

benefit from technology, given that, although there are authors who

claim that ICTs have replaced the teacher, the teacher becomes

central in the teaching process if he/she is conceived as a literacy

agent, who creates new situations for students to appropriate new

knowledge useful to develop in the digital environment both at

school and at work. Universities, both face-to-face and mixed, must

have teachers with technological resources and skills, who are able

to teach the contents of their subjects, also using the concepts and

skills related to technology.

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