Education in the context of digitalization and culture: Evolution of the teacher’s role, pre-pandemic overview

Abstract

This study was conducted before the outbreak of the pandemic and now the results seem clear. The intensive forced use of distance technologies in the educational process has changed the approach to education forever. What exactly has changed? this is already a topic for new research. We suggest going back a little and see how the role of the teacher changed as the use of digital technologies intensified before the pandemic. This article analyzes the studies devoted to teachers’ experiences in interacting with digital environments, and reviews digital learning systems, environments, and tools. The study found that there are many opportunities, applications, and automated digital environments in the world, but none of them can, to a greater or lesser extent, do without a supervisor, or a teacher. In addition, the paper found that, despite the diversity of digital learning tools, that issues existed related to using such tools by teachers due to the lack of adequate digital competence or even because some teachers tend to have a negative attitude towards this new concept of education. Therefore, sufficient conditions and opportunities should be created for teachers to obtain the required digital competence and to explore the culture of digital technology in education and learning environments to succeed in the subsequent integration of digital technology into the field of education.