Advancing Digital Learning in a Traditional System

Abstract

This report presents an exploratory study with three interviewees in Uruguay: a private school director in Montevideo, an APREnDER school director in Montevideo, and a Plan Ceibal employee who occupies a leadership position. The semi-structured interviews were conducted between November, 2020, and May, 2021, and centered on the leaders’ experiences to implement suitable teaching and outreach strategies to continue providing education. The findings suggest that Uruguay’s digital learning strategy has grappled with conciliating traditional views on education and digital learning. They further point to not all schools using digital learning resources during the pandemic even when these were available to them and their students, which suggests in some cases a digital divide originated by choice (Gunkel, 2003). The socio-economic gap seems then to depend not so much on the lack of means to acquire technological devices, but on the balance between the traditionally valued education system and the incorporation of new technologies.