Abstract:

Digital skills are an important element in the educational environment, their development and integration should be a priority in order to address modern society demands. Therefore, the objective of this research was to identify how a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for teachers influences the development of their and their students’ digital skills. This paper is part of the project “Estudio comparativo del desarrollo de competencias digitales en el marco del programa Mi Compu.Mx”, an initiative by the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), which gave 240,000 computers to children in fifth and sixth grade in Colima, Sonora and Tabasco (Mexico) during the 2013-2014 school year. Data was collected through a pre-test (self-administered questionnaire) to know the self-concept that students had about their digital skills. Then, 5th and 6th grade directors and teachers took a MOOC to develop didactic-digital skills to integrate the resources and tools available in the program to their teaching practices. Finally, a post-test was applied to students who participated in the pre-test, isolating teachers who completed the MOOC, in order to make comparisons. We also interviewed teachers and directors to know about their experience during training. We employed a mixed methods approach with an explanatory sequential design (QUAN→qual), in which quantitative data was used to measure training’s impact on teachers’ and students’ digital skills development, and qualitative data allowed us to explain the problems that arose during training and the perceived benefits.

Keywords:

MOOC, OER, learning environments, digital skills, elementary education.