USING OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus has brought a series of challenges to higher education and education as a whole. It resulted in a nationwide lockdown, disrupted the traditional face-to-face teaching method, and forced teachers and students to stay at home. With the closure of all educational institutions, there was a need to think of alternative ways to continue the teaching-learning process. The educational field has experienced significant variation with the Inclusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), applying a range of tools. Based on the qualitative and exploratory method, the research starts from a universe composed of 283 online journalistic articles belonging to the two-year period relating to the pandemic that, after selection, resulted in 27 articles for detailed analysis of the topic. The results of the present study converge to three major sets of main domains: (1) structural aspects, (2) related to the teaching staff and (3) the student body. The analysis of the selected materials allowed the verification that the ICT’s, as support tools, gave more flexibility, adaptability and dynamism to the educational system, allowing the continuity of the teaching process. And the use of these technologies has brought new and significant possibilities for educational practices, their adoption faced, and still face, several challenges related to teacher training, resistance to changes on the part of educational teams, the structural characteristics of educational institutions and the need to students' motivation.