Educational Informatics in

Chile: policies, measures and

pending challenges.

Alumno(a): Ana Díaz Angel

Profesor(a): Irene Ibacache

Educational Informatics in Chile: policies, measures and pending challenges.
 Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs, are computational and computer
tools that process, synthesize, retrieve and present information in the form of voice,
images and data contained in signals of an acoustic, optical or electromagnetic nature.
ICTs include electronics as the base technology that supports the development of
telecommunications, information technology and audiovisual. At present, everything
depends on science and technology, this involves all fields of society, including education,
meeting its appearance that ancient teaching paradigms are not so valid today. In this
sense, it is necessary that information and communication technologies, ICTs, are
increasing and developing new concepts, making their application an urgent need in which
the increase in knowledge and educational demands become day by day in a permanent
requirement. The use of ICT in the classroom should be aimed at promoting active,
constructive and collaborative learning, under an approach in which the teacher is a guide
and guidance and students become actors in their own learning, in which multimedia
teaching materials have become increasingly important. Now, what are the policies that
are being carried out in our country? What measures are being implemented in the
classrooms? What are the pending challenges? All those questions will be revealed
through this essay.

The international tendency, especially in Latin America, to adopt the inclusion of

technologies in the education system shows that countries have been facing and solving
diverse challenges, starting with providing educational establishments with resources,
technological inputs and connectivity, and then move towards the generation of
maintenance policies, restitution of equipment and technical support. As UNESCO
indicates through the Trends Information System in Latin America in relation to
regulations, policies and quantitative indicators related to ICT (SITEAL / TIC) the initial
purpose of ICT-related educational policies was and is to advance in coverage, whose
results are measured among other indicators, by number of students per computer,
percentage of students with internet access from schools or homes, percentages of
connected establishments, among other aspects. In a second stage, progress is being
made in promoting improvement policies and support systems for teachers, with the
purpose that they make a technical and then pedagogical use of information and
communication technologies, to finally integrate curricular, contextual and pertinent ICT
in the classroom, thematic that according to the review of the aforementioned site, both
the indicators of digital culture and appropriation, are observed quantitatively diminished
in terms of the number of registered policies and regulations.
Since until a few years ago the traditional teaching-learning process was based on a
curriculum delivered by the Ministry of Education that contemplated plans and programs
and its organization consisted of a list of mandatory minimum contents, expected
learning, indications to the teacher and activities generic and examples to follow, the work
in the classroom was practically mechanical, however, in recent years this has been
changing and today the sociocultural system has forced the educational system to
generate in the student an updated and meaningful learning, contemplating for this, the
realization of some curricular modifications that encourage motivation and flexibility of
thinking, also leads the teacher to break down barriers and invites him to constantly
update himself while making use of innovative resources that involve the potential of
students in function of technology in education. Chile has not been the exception in this
trend, starting this task at least two decades ago, focusing on basic and media
establishments through the Education and Technology Center of the Ministry of
Education, “Enlaces”, a national project that became a program of the educational public
policy, where ICT standards and personal skills were established for teachers, directors of
educational establishments, heads of UTP Pedagogical Technical Units and in charge of
CRA Learning Resource Centers. Recently in the country, two Censuses of Educational
Informatics have been deployed as part of the Digital Development Measurement System,
which allow to show results of public policy in all subsidized public and private educational
establishments, through a Digital Development Index School IDDE per educational unit.

Likewise, a variety of tests and analyzes have been implemented in schools in order to
measure the quality and ability of students to acquire computer technologies. For
example, national assessment tests of ICT Skills for Learning (SIMCE TIC) have been
applied, focusing on elementary and middle school students and an ICT INICIA test to
diagnose mastery levels in initial teacher training in pedagogical careers Universities,
especially those belonging to the Council of Rectors of Chile CRUCH. However, progress
was made in models of technological inclusion both at the educational center and
classroom level, promoting inclusion strategies, which since 2013 have been accompanied
by a Matrix of ICT Skills for Learning (HTPA), defined as the ability to solve information,
communication and knowledge problems as well as legal, social and ethical dilemmas in a
digital environment.

Technological progress requires new ways of thinking, new ways of learning, that is, new
challenges in terms of teaching, and incorporating new channels into the teaching-
learning process that teachers have to integrate as a teaching resource in their
pedagogical practice. In other words, today we are looking to educate people who will be
citizens participating in this Information Society through the introduction of a pedagogical
change, a change in the teaching methodological and organizational strategies. For its
part, the use of ICT in the classroom should be aimed at promoting active, constructive
and collaborative learning, under an approach in which the teacher is a guide and
guidance and students become actors in their own learning, in which multimedia teaching
materials have become increasingly important. The incorporation of ICTs in the field of
education provides a great source of resources and teaching materials that significantly
influence the teaching and learning of the student community. A learning system based on
Information and Communication Technologies represents the incorporation of a new
approach to the current education system and opens the door to new educational and
training paradigms. Besides, the use of ICTs in the classroom provides the student with a
tool that adapts to their current technological culture and gives them the possibility of
taking more responsibility for their education, making them the protagonist of their own
learning.