Appropriation of Information Technologies during remote university education in Latin America

Abstract

The use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has revolutionized not only how we live, but also how we teach and learn, even more so during the pandemic, when universities had to adopt a 100% virtual methodology due to lockdowns. The aim of this study is to collate the evidence on the use of ICTs for remote education in Latin American universities during the Covid-19 pandemic, through the systematic review of leading articles indexed in journals such as Scopus, Pro Quest, Redalyc, and others, published between March 2020 and March 2022. The method includes the use of the PRISMA statement, and an explicit flowchart for the selection of articles on inclusion and exclusion criteria, using a keyword search algorithm. The results showed that 36% of the study reported the use of virtual environments such as institutional platforms or Google Classroom to develop synchronous and asynchronous classes, 27% rolled out innovative educational technological tools with proposals ranging from chatbots, teaching telepresence to mass assessment tools, and 18.5% shared their experiences in the use of open educational resources, such as gamification tools, and mobile devices, in particular WhatsApp and Telegram for communication. The country that reported the largest number of experiences was Mexico. One can therefore conclude that faced with the unexpected change in modality, and despite situations of uncertainty, limited technology and coverage combined with lack of training, Latin American universities demonstrated the ability to appropriate technological tools for their pedagogical practice during remote education. Considering these findings, we decided to reflect on the challenges posed by virtual education, in the context of a new normality, in a region where the connectivity gap is still a limitation.