The Digital Transformation of Instructional Materials. Views and Practices of Teachers, Families and Editors

This article derives from an empirical research carried out over three years (2016–2019) whose purpose was to explore and analyses the digital educational resources offered online for Primary Education in Spain. Our research design is based on the assumption that the omnipresence of digital technologies in their multiple formats (tablets, smartphones, multimedia, laptops, etc.) is not only transforming the productive, economic and service sectors of our society, but has also altered the forms and processes of elaboration, distribution and consumption of culture and knowledge. The latter is directly affecting the traditional cultural industries of packaging and dissemination of information (music, cinema, media, etc.), generating a crisis of the traditional model of production and access to these cultural products (in the field of music, cinema, advertising, press, books, etc.). Similarly, these phenomena of digital transformation are also occurring with traditional educational materials such as textbooks, where the didactic monopoly that the textbook had years ago in the classroom is being questioned, having to share it with other resources of a digital nature. In this article we set out to explore what visions and opinions do educational agents (teachers, families and publishers) have about the potential of digital educational resources, and what are the didactic practices of these resources in the school classrooms.

The academic production developed on didactic resources or materials for three decades has generated a wide and abundant bibliography that has addressed the conceptualization of teaching aids, didactic materials or educational resources. This set of works have shown that:

The didactic material or resource can be defined as a cultural, physical or digital object, elaborated to generate learning in a certain educational situation (Area, 2020). For this reason, the experience of use or interaction of the student with the didactic material or artifact occurs in a school context that is conditioned by multiple variables: teaching methodology, availability of resources in the center and classroom, activities developed, among others.

For more than a decade, digital technologies have been driving a profound transformation in the production, distribution and consumption of culture and knowledge (Einav, 2015; Engen, 2019; Rossignoli et al., 2018). This process is a complex phenomenon involving diverse intertwining dimensions that go far beyond the mere change of technological format. Digital transformation is directly affecting the field of educational material and school teaching resources (Author, 20xx; Al-lmamy, Samer, 2020; Gopal, 2020) and this is exemplified by the conversion of traditional printed materials, such as textbooks, into a new generation of digital educational resources (Xie et al., 2018). Around school teaching materials, and in particular textbooks, there is an important cultural industry. For more than a decade there has been the concept of Open Educational Resource (OER) (Wiley, 2008; Lane y MacAndrew, 2010; Wiley, Bliss and McEwen, 2014) that is promoting the use of digital resources in the classroom.

There is a large body of literature on research on digital educational resources at the international level. The works by Fernandes et al. (2020), Branch et al. (2019) provide good insight into this field. The lines that have received the most attention involve the consideration of educational digital resources as “objects or artifacts” for teaching and learning (Wiley, 2008). In this respect, the analysis and evaluation of these resources may be the line of research that has received the most attention (Kohout-Tailor & Sheaffer, 2020).

The concept of open digital resources (Wiley et al., 2014) has also been the focus of much research, especially insofar as storage and distribution through open online repositories (Kim et al., 2019; Marcus-Quinn & Diggins, 2013). Author (20xx) identified a variety of lines and topics currently under development regarding educational resources and materials which are summarized in Table 1.

One of the most relevant studies on digital resources for the school environment (Fuhs and Bock, 2018) clearly demonstrates that educational quality does not depend solely on the characteristics of the technology or educational material being used, but rather on the corresponding context, teacher professionalism and teaching method. It has been found that the continued use of digital textbooks generates different emotions in teachers (Chiu, 2017).

A shared assumption in this field is the urgent need for schools to appropriate digital technology and radically transform their discourse and pedagogical practice (Avvisati et al., 2013; Bottino, 2020; Nedungadi et al., 2018). However, we should emphasize that it is well known that the mere substitution of one type of technology for another does not transform teaching or learning processes. Many more variables (organizational, educational, personal, cultural) intervene in processes of pedagogical change and innovation (Grönlund et al., 2018). In order to transform educational methods and practices with materials, it is necessary to develop new pedagogical and curricular approaches, rearrange school organization, build teacher professionalism, and create new resources, materials, contents, tools and services so that teachers, students and their families can teach and learn online.

In summary, we can say that the principles or reference points on which this research is based are as follows:a) A systemic view on research in educational technologies where we not only focus attention on the characteristics of the media or materials as digital objects, but also analyse them contextually and functionally in relation to the rest of the agents, dimensions and educational processes of the school system;b) The theory on the processes of innovation and educational change in schools, since digital media and materials are a necessary curricular component whose role or functionality, among others, is to facilitate the putting into practice and implementation of innovative educational proposals and projects linked to the transformation of the school in the digital society of the twenty-first century;c) A holistic and critical approach to research on educational technologies that explores their impact on educational change through the thinking of educational agents and their classroom practices.

This research aimed to explore and analyze the phenomena and processes that surround and accompany the process of new models of production and distribution of teaching materials on digital platforms, as well as the impact they have on the teaching and learning practices developed in schools and classrooms. To this end, we focus our attention on the analysis of the supply of digital teaching materials in Primary Education, carrying out the study in three autonomous communities or regions of Spain: the Canary Islands, Galicia and the Valencian Community.

The starting questions for the development of this research were the following:

We use a mixed methodological approach with diverse research techniques: content analysis, interviews, classroom observations, discussion groups, documentary analysis, multi-case analysis, … and where we have explored the visions and representations of the different educational agents and actors: teachers, students, families, publishers and technical managers of the educational administrations. The basic questions that guided the research were the following:

We carried out two studies analyzing these educational materials from a multidimensional perspective. Our qualitative research methodology involved a combination of analysis strategies. Figure 1 displays our two-level approach: the analysis of educational agents’ subjective representations, and the analysis of practices with digital educational resources in schools. Each study had its own specific objetives and procedures (Table 2).

Our results are structured in accordance to the studies conducted in the project.

Insofar as the opinion of educational agents, teachers expressed the need to have more and better training on the creation, use and evaluation of digital educational materials, as has been highlighted in previous research (Magdas & Dringu, 2016; Mahapatra, 2020; Palacios et al., 2020). Managers of institutional portals drew attention to assessment by teachers and pupils as a way to understand the socio-educational impact of their platforms. Technicians from commercial publishing companies expressed the importance of focusing on the needs and criticisms from teachers and pupils. (Allen Knight, 20xx) as well as coordinating technical teams to create teaching materials with high interactive and pedagogical value. In line with Marsh et al. (2017), it was considered that families should participate more actively in the design of digital educational resources.

A common aspect mentioned by the different members of the educational community was the need to develop hybrid models supporting the coexistence of analog and digital material. Studies such as Weng et al. (2018) also report this opinion.

Another consideration emerges as a consequence. In the process of DER production, it would be very beneficial to incorporate methods of co-creation in order to take advantage of users’ diverse perspectives and capabilities (whether teachers, pupils or families). Users should be involved in the processes not only of design but also of evaluation, because the production of DER should not be left solely in the hands of publishing companies, educational experts, nor educational researchers.

Teachers tend to use or adapt existing materials. They functionally modify resources produced by other entities (companies, educational administrations, and other teaching groups) to their didactic needs and the characteristics of their pupils. Some teachers create their own digital educational materials and use them in combination with other digital and analog resources. Usually, the technical and pedagogical quality of self-produced materials is often poorer than those available from other sources. The main reason teachers give for self-producing materials is that the commercial and institutional materials available do not meet the specific needs of their pupils. The didactic functionality of self-produced digital materials is to motivate pupils and promote different types of learning (Zwart et al., 2017).

Another conclusion of this study, which is in line with previous research, is that the type of activities carried out in classrooms is not determined by characteristics of materials themselves, but by the underlying teaching methodology. Likewise, there are certain barriers (e.g. school institutional rigidity and isolation, teachers’ professional practices and beliefs) which affect the use of educational resources (Sumardi et al., 2020; Sunkel, 2012).

These findings lead to a third conclusion. Rather than focusing on the provision of technological resources to individual schools, educational policies regarding ICT and DER should provide teachers with training opportunities to foster innovations with educational resources and technologies, as well as promoting school collaboration projects and improvement networks (Author, 20xx).

Our study findings have practical implications for improving the technical and pedagogical quality of digital didactic resources. These recommendations have already been disseminated (Author, 20xx). This guide provides practical guidance for enterprises and educational institutions on the design, development and evaluation of digital learning materials, recommendations for teachers on the selection and use of materials in the classroom, and guidance for families on the educational use of digital technologies at home.

Furthermore, the design of this research project, which approaches educational resources from a multidimensional perspective (didactic objects; agent subjectivities; school and classroom practices), has the potential for replication and adaptation to other regional and national contexts. This methodology makes it possible to understand the characteristics of materials, their online distribution platforms, how they are viewed by educational agents, and their classroom use in different school contexts.

It should be noted that, unlike previous studies on teaching aids and materials, our research offers a more holistic and systemic approach to the analysis and evaluation of DER. We address not only the characteristics of DER and their distribution through digital education platforms, but also the subjectivities and practices of users. Our research offers an integrated methodological approach involving various qualitative strategies, and also incorporates advances in knowledge regarding how these resources are modulated and adapted in school practice. By means of our multi-case studies, we have found that school use of such materials is conditioned by factors external to the teacher (such as the dominant pedagogical culture in the school and the availability of DER in the classroom), as well as individual factors involving teaching methodology, prior experience with analogue/digital materials, and pedagogical beliefs. To some extent, these factors coincide with previous reports on ICT use in schools (Keengwe et al., 2008; Kopcha, 2012) and explain why some teachers continue to predominantly use textbooks and occasionally incorporate digital resources, while other teachers apply a work project methodology where students constantly use a wide range of digital and/or analogue materials. The latter teachers are not only users but sometimes also producers of digital learning materials.

With regard to study limitations and future prospects, the present study could be complemented by additional research. For example, it would be of interest to design and carry out quantitative studies by means of questionnaires to collect descriptive data on the opinions of teachers, pupils and families. Another limitation is that the analysis is limited to a single country: Spain. It would be interesting to extend this analysis to other countries in Europe and other continents in order to allow transnational comparisons and a broader more holistic outlook of the idiosyncratic transformation processes involving digital learning materials throughout the world. Such studies could provide rationale for national education policies regarding the production, dissemination and use of digital learning materials at schools.

Finally, this research provides an approach to the discourse or subjectivity of educational agents regarding digital educational resources and their practices in schools. However, there are still very important questions that the school must address in collaboration with other social agents. Among them, we highlight three: What are the challenges for schools if they want to train the next generations so that students are able to face the challenges of twenty-first century society equipped with values such as social justice, equity and sustainability? What changes should be introduced in the curricula of future teachers and in continuous training in order to have teachers who are not only digitally competent, but who can face the challenges of the twenty-first century school? And in what ways can families be involved in this process by giving them a voice and encouraging their participation?