DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE EDUCATION 4.0 ENVIRONMENT

 

Norma Patricia Maldonado Reynoso¹*, Arturo Javier Rodríguez Aguirre²

¹Dr., Instituto Politecnico Nacional / CIECAS, MEXICO, nmaldonador@ipn.mx

²MsC, Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de Mexico, MEXICO, arturodri62@gmail.com

*Corresponding Author

 

Abstract

Distance education (ED) has its antecedents in the 19th century, with the sending of contents by mail; since the 20th century, technology has changed the educational environment, not only in sending information - now digitally - but also in learning strategies, both for face-to-face and in distance environments.

At present, in the educational context the so-called “Education 4.0” appears, which is still controversial because, on the one hand, it refers to trends in educational innovation mainly in the digital context, a fact that already existed without being called “education 4.0". On the other hand, Industry 4.0 emerges, which considers that education must adapt its structures and design ad hoc learning experiences to achieve the desirable objectives of the modern productive sector (Flores et al., 2020).

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, face-to-face education is transferred to distance learning, and therefore, some consider that we are in the context of education 4.0, when in fact a detailed evaluation has not been prepared.

This paper presents the results of a qualitative research carried out with key informants to determine the degree of effectiveness of education 4.0 at the higher level. For this we rely on constructivist theories that indicate that the center of pedagogical activity is the student as an active agent of learning. The analysis was complemented with the theory of Connectivism (Downes and Siemens). This paper presents a part of a broader investigation carried out in Mexico, at the National Polytechnic Institute (SIP-20201596).

Among the results obtained, we can say that it has not been possible to move efficiently to education 4.0 without students receiving training in the use of technological tools, in addition that students need to be trained in relation to new ways of studying in online, which are different from face-to-face education. It is necessary for the teacher to redesign their materials to generate more collaborative activities.

This research provides important elements to enrich the clarity of the term Education 4.0, as well as its main actors and the trends of change in learning management that are heading towards the 21st century.

Keywords: Distance Education, Education 4.0, Industry 4.0, conceptualization.