María del Rosario Neira Piñeiro

Oportunidades de las TIC para la innovación educativa en las escuelas rurales de Asturias

espanolLos proyectos institucionales de las ultimas decadas -Aldea Digital y Programa Escuela 2.0-, destinados a dotar de recursos tecnologicos y programas educativos a la escuelas, han tenido especial repercusion en el ambito rural, contribuyendo a minimizar la brecha digital entre los contextos urbanos y rurales. Asi pues, con el presente estudio se pretende identificar las oportunidades que las Tecnologias de la Informacion y la Comunicacion (TIC) ofrecen a las escuelas rurales asturianas para la innovacion educativa a partir de: a) la opinion de una muestra de docentes (n = 117) recabada mediante un cuestionario; b) la evaluacion experta de los coordinadores TIC de 14 escuelas rurales, obtenida a partir de entrevistas semiestructuradas, y c) analisis DAFO: debilidades, amenazas, fortalezas y oportunidades que implica su integracion. Entre las conclusiones se destaca que, a pesar de las limitaciones del contexto, la escasez de recursos humanos y tecnologicos, y la inversion de tiempo y esfuerzo personal que implica la integracion de las TIC, tambien suponen grandes oportunidades: actualizacion del profesorado, adopcion de novedosas metodologias, desarrollo de experiencias exitosas con TIC y formacion mas acorde con las demandas actuales del alumnado EnglishIn the last few decades some institutional projects �Digital Village and One Laptop per Child� were developed in order to provide technological resources and educational programmes for schools. These projects have had a significant impact in rural environments, contributing to reducing the digital divide between urban and rural settings. In this paper, an attempt is made to identify the opportunities offered by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for educational innovation in rural schools of Asturias. Several features are considered: a) the opinion of a sample of teachers (n = 117), collected by means of a questionnaire; b) the qualified assessment of the ICT coordinators of 14 rural schools, obtained by semi-structured interviews; and c) a SWOT analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats implied by the integration of ICT. As a conclusion, in spite of the context restrictions, the shortage of human and technological resources, and the investment of the time and money required by the integration of ICT, they offer great opportunities: teacher updates, the adoption of new teaching methods, the development of successful experiences with ICT, and an education more suitable for current student needs.