Uso de materiais educacionais digitais na educação à distância : limitações, potencialidades e apropriação

Abstract

Any material that has the purpose of supporting the teaching-learning process and that incorporates digital resources in its development and presentation, such as images, videos, simulations, animations, books and digital books, audios, software, among many others, can be considered a Digital Educational Material (MED). Analyzing the scenario of distance education, we find that many courses are mediated with the help of technology and use platforms and virtual spaces to guide and make available Digital Materials that help in learning the contents. By enabling differentiated, creative and attractive strategies, digital materials have a strong potential to collaborate with students' academic and professional development. Basing on this importance, this research had as general objective to analyze how the digital educational materials are being used in the courses of distance education (EAD) in Institute Federal of Piauí (IFPI), which are part of the Network E-Tec, and the possibilities of extension of these materials, with a view to the improvement of teaching and learning process. This research, of a qualitative nature, uses some quantitative data to justify its results and also contains traces of an exploratory study. For the data collection, it used how observation techniques in the Moodle platform - where the course is developed - and the application of questionnaires to students, teachers and tutors of the Technical Course in Administration in distance education of IFPI. It found that the use of MED in distance education of IFPI is constant and essential for the development of the course and that some professors try to diversify MED used widely, but, to a great extent of the development of the disciplines, only traditional materials are used in distance education, such as videotapes, digital handouts, complementary texts and study guides presented in power point. Thus, it is possible to infer that there can and should be an expansion of MED, how there are numerous types of digital materials that can be explored with great efficiency in distance education. However, diversification is not always the only important criterion. There are several features that contribute to its quality and efficiency. It was possible to identify that MED used in EAD of IFPI have regular quality and need to improve some characteristics such as interactivity, adequate language and contribution to learning. Another point identified is that students, teachers and tutors unanimously consider that its use is important for the teaching-learning process in EAD. All teachers and tutors emphasize the need to insert instruction on this theme for the development of their activities. In order to collaborate with such a scenario, this research proposed an e-book that helps the professionals that will produce and choose MED to identify indicators of pedagogical quality in the material to be used in distance education. We conclude that the continuous improvement of materials available in EAD should be a routine for all institutions, and that they should constantly invest in training for their professionals, so that they can be better prepared for the challenges that society imposes today.