These examples and many others like them are seen today as proof of the growing contribution of the internet to what it means to learn and receive education in the 21st century. Clearly, initiatives such as MOOCs, flipped classrooms, and self-organized learning may well turn out to be triggers for the "change in the state of education" (Oblinger, 2012). However, the history of educational technology over the past 100 years teaches us that change is seldom as instantaneous or as extensive as many people would like to believe. In fact, The history of modern educational technologies (beginning with Thomas Edison's strong support for educational films in the 1910s) has been broadly characterized by a series of complex relationships between education and technology in which the two condition each other ( Cuban, 1986). In other words, new technologies rarely have a direct and univocal impact or a predictable effect on education. While established educational cultures and traditions have a profound influence on technologies. As historian Larry Cuban (1993: 185) has already pointed out about the notable adaptation of schools to the successive waves of technological advances of the 1980s and 1990s, in the encounter between "the computer and the classroom, the classroom wins" .
From this perspective it is not surprising to observe that the most successful forms of internet education and e-learning they are the ones that reflect or even replicate the preinternet systems: classrooms, book classes, etc. It is also not surprising that the deep-rooted grammar of formal education and its institutions has a great presence in the emerging forms of online education (Tyack and Cuban, 1995). Take for example the persistence of well-known methods, such as the division of knowledge into subject areas, individual assessment, or consultation with expert teachers. Although this continuity is understandable, it clearly contradicts those who claim radical transformation and disruption of the educational status quo. Thus, in contrast to the revolutionary zeal of some analysts, it could be pointed out that the Internet has a greater impact on education when it does not generate participation patterns or practice radically new ones. For example, The recent boom in MOOCs in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, instead of reaching educational opportunities for those who do not have them, seems instead to be facilitating access to more educational means for individuals with resources, highly motivated and with good preparation (thus replicating a trend that some sociologists call the "Matthew effect"). This does not mean that MOOCs are an insignificant form of education, despite the fact that their main impact is to intensify rather than expand educational participation. In fact, from this perspective, the supposed radical transformative and social change properties attributed to MOOCs (and other forms of online education) should be welcomed with great caution.
This takes any attempt to predict the possible influence of the internet on future forms of education to uncertain terrain. It is certainly not smart to adopt the outright cynical stance that internet education offers nothing new (that is, that the educational effects of the internet are nothing more than "old wine in new wineskins"). But it would be equally wrong to assume that any of the examples seen so far in this article is the prelude to a fundamental change in education. Of course, the internet is associated with educational changes, although these changes are complex, contradictory, convoluted and clearly chaotic.
In this regard, when analyzing the relationship between the internet and education, it may be more relevant to emphasize the purely sociological aspects above the technical ones.
And it is that the Internet raises a series of ideological questions (instead of giving purely technical answers) about education in the near future. So, now, we must move away from the optimism that permeates almost all the dialogue on Internet education. Instead, we will focus on the many social, cultural and political implications that are not always recognized, but also deserve our attention.
1. The Internet and the increasing individualization of education
First, there is the way in which Internet education promotes an implicit individualization of practice and action. Many pedagogues especially appreciate that the Internet increases the responsibility of individuals when choosing educational options and bearing the consequences of their choice. All the forms of online education reviewed in this article require the individual a high degree of autonomy, and in them educational success will depend above all on the ability to manage their progressive commitment to learning through the media they choose. This is generally supposed to act in favor of the individual and to the detriment of institutions. But the idea of the responsible and autonomous student is based on the unrealistic assumption, authentic and autonomous in their daily life. In Bauman's (2001) terms, the competent online student is someone capable of acting as an individual with all the power in fact and not just in law (that is, someone who is simply supposed to be individualistic). Clearly, only a privileged minority of people are capable of acting in a completely autonomous way. This individualization of the action itself will end up making education an area of greater risk, but also of opportunities.
These aspects raise a number of important questions. For example, what real equality is there between individuals when making an educational decision among the options offered by the internet? Why do the apparent educational freedoms of the internet translate into significant losses of freedom (such as the intensification of educational work and its expansion into the domestic sphere)? To what extent are personalized forms of online education limited to facilitating the massive personalization of homogeneous educational services and content? What is the nature of collective forms of online education? What is special about the Internet student communities in terms of social diversity, commitment or solidarity? Is the internet weakening or even eroding the notion of education as a public good?
2. The Internet and the Development of Data-Driven Education
Another important aspect to the growing presence of the internet in education is the way in which online data and information define, and at the same time describe, social life. The Internet has reinforced the importance of databases, data mining, analytics, and algorithms, making more and more organizations and institutions operate through continuous data collection, aggregation, and (re) analysis. In essence, the internet allows this data work to take place on a large scale and cumulatively. There is a conviction that we live in the era of big data, in which computer systems make available to us "huge amounts of information produced by and about people, things and their interactions" (Boyd and Crawford, 2012: 662).
Online data collection and analysis are currently key in how actions are structured and decisions are made in many areas of education. For example, huge amounts of data are being generated, collected and accumulated online as a result of internet activities within educational institutions. These range from internal or in-house monitoring of system conditions to public data collection at the local, state and federal levels. The data thus obtained serve a variety of purposes, including internal course administration, goal setting, performance management, and student monitoring. Similar processes and practices exist in the use of data between different education systems, from student databases to classifications by academic results. Of course, the increasing relevance of online data offers many advantages and lately there has been great enthusiasm about the potential of «learning analytics», that is, of «measuring, collecting, analyzing and communicating data about students and their contexts in order to understand and optimize learning and the environment in which it occurs »(Siemens et al ., 2011: 4). At the same time, there is increasing talk of educational data mining and academic analytics. It is believed that all this use of digital data will lead to more efficient and transparent educational processes, in addition to supporting self-monitoring and Self - diagnosis of learning by stakeholders (Eynon, 2013).
However, we need to be cautious about the potential benefits, and in particular about the role that the increasing prevalence of online data plays in education in defining what people can and cannot do. For example, how are individuals and their learning represented in the data collected online? How does the internet facilitate the connection, accumulation and use of this data in ways that were not possible before? To what extent do data profiles determine individuals' educational choices? How is this data used online in predictive supervision actions, in which educators and institutions draw on existing performance and behavior data to inform expectations of future behaviors? What aspects of educational activity are not represented in the online data that is collected and analyzed?
3. Internet and the increasing commercialization and privatization of education
Third, it is necessary to recognize the role of commercial and private agents in the expansion of Internet education. In fact, the private sector is key in many of the forms of online education described in this article. For example, the global education and technology market is estimated to total $ 7 trillion, and private capital investment in online education continues to grow. A number of multinational business conglomerates, such as Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw-Hill, have a strong involvement in the e-learning business and online teaching and training sites., in competition with countless smaller operators and a whole range of non-profit organizations. It is evident that Internet education marks a clear departure from the planned economy model in which education is largely provided by public institutions of state management (Picciano and Spring, 2013).
Of course, the growing presence of commercial interests in online education offers numerous potential advantages, since the private sector has the capacity to invest considerable technological and human resources in the field of education. It is generally believed that the training provided by commercial organizations better responds to the demands of their customers, whether these are the immediate preferences of the students or the expected labor demand for business and industry. Furthermore, as Chubb and Moe (2012) believe, competition between the private and public sectors of education can be beneficial: “Over time [commercial organizations] can achieve amazing things through computerized instruction. Just imagine Apple or Microsoft-like agents with the right incentives to work in higher education. They can also offer healthy competition to non-profit elites in offering high-quality, innovative content. ” In fact, the claim made by many of the forms of internet education described in this chapter is the use of private sector innovation to counteract the deficiencies of public education. As Sebastian Thrun (the computer engineer who is credited with popularizing the MOOC concept) recently argued: “Education is broken. Let's accept it […], it is broken by so many places that it needs a bit of Silicon Valley magic ”(in Wolfson, 2013).
Without prejudice to the benefits of business innovation and magic, there are a number of reasons to question the growing influence of private business in shaping curricula. For example, to what extent are computer technology manufacturers and distributors committed to the good of education technology beyond the pursuit of profit and market share? Given that education is a fundamental criterion for determining the opportunities to prosper of the most vulnerable members of society, would a Silicon Valley capitalist vision be appropriate, with high-risk ventures and high expectations of failure? What are the moral and ethical implications of reconfiguring education based on market direction and business values? Why should the needs of education automatically correspond to those of the digital economy?
4. Internet and the change of values in education
Finally, although perhaps less obvious, there is a feeling that the internet could be altering the psychological, emotional and spiritual foundations of education. For example, many of the forms of online education discussed here involve a greater presence of education in areas of society and social life where it was not previously. This supposes an always activated state of potential educational activity. In fact, the availability at any time, anywhere of online education it implies a clear shift from education to domestic, work and community settings where education and learning may not have had such a presence before. There is a clear parallel with what Basil Bernstein (2001) identified as "the pedagogization of society", that is, a modern society that ensures that pedagogy is integrated into all possible spheres of life. This brings us to the question, what is lost when someone can participate in an educational activity at any time of the day and in any context? Is it important to be able to disconnect when you want from the pressures of education? Are there contexts and circumstances more apt for learning than others?
We can also affirm that many of the forms of online education Described in this article turn education (often unintentionally) into a competitive enterprise. Rather than making it easier for individuals to learn together and in harmony, it would seem that the internet places individuals in 'personal training cycles, immersed in unison in individual loops of action and response. They learn to be industrious and self-demanding students who accept and implement goals imposed from outside »(Allen, 2011: 378). Although the philosophy of succeeding at the expense of others is not immediately apparent, the Internet can be considered as a means of concretizing, masking and intensifying the intrinsic competitive connotations that learning has. In this line of thought, the partial, segmented, task-based, fragmented and discontinuous nature of education Online perhaps it can even be seen as a form of "spiritual alienation", that is, alienation at the meaning level, where "conditions of work well done" are separated from "conditions of good disposition" (Sennett, 2012).
All of the above is also related to the correspondence between the internet and the alteration of emotional aspects in the educational effort. Specifically, we could say that in many of the forms of internet education described here (such as virtual schools or MOOCs), learning is experienced in a less immediate, less intimate and perhaps more instrumental environment. These aspects were analyzed in the recent reflections of Jonathan Wolff (2013) on what can be lost when a university class is given online instead of in a physical classroom. Although losses are often difficult to quantify, Wolff tells us about qualities such as the immediacy, surprise, and "authenticity" of the "live experience" of learning in the company of other people. Of course, the virtual and remote sensation of online teaching is quantitatively different from that of face-to-face learning, in good and bad.
CONCLUSIONS
Whether or not we agree with the last points presented, it is evident that the subject of internet and education requires careful analysis. The predominantly optimistic rhetoric of transformation and change that currently surrounds the relationship between the internet and education diverts attention from numerous and important conflicts and tensions that need to be accepted and addressed. I do not mean by this that we should adopt a completely antagonistic or pessimistic position. In fact, many of the problems mentioned do not have to be an automatic cause for concern. After all, it will be positive for many people to benefit from more individualized, elitist, competitive, market-oriented, ubiquitous and emotionally deprived forms of education. online .
But although the internet allows some individuals access more comfortable, attractive and useful forms of education, it must be admitted that this is not an extended situation. Any change in education generated by the internet is accompanied by a variety of unwanted consequences, side effects and unforeseen repercussions. Perhaps most important is the already proven trend of digital technology to reinforce existing educational patterns, helping individuals who are already initiated to participate more, but contributing little to expanding participation or recovering those who have given up on continuing to study. Any discussion of the educational potential of the internet must take into account the limited usefulness of a technical approach to understanding contemporary education. The Internet should not be seen as the ideal solution to the obvious deficiencies of 20th century educational institutions or practices, as it does not automatically produce more committed or motivated students, more qualified workforces, or higher levels of intelligence and innovation in a country. On the contrary, it is quite possible that many of the ills that plague contemporary education are mainly of a social and cultural nature, and therefore require social and cultural responses.
Thus, although everything points to an increasingly intensive use of the internet in education, proclamations of change and improvement must be seen as conflicting issues and debated, rather than inevitable trends to which educators have no choice but to adapt. By insisting on a key point present throughout this exposition, the question of what kind of education we believe in for the future underlies all the issues addressed. The role of the internet in improving, transforming or even disrupting education is a very complex issue with a great ideological burden that goes beyond strictly technical considerations, such as personalizing access to educational content or facilitating the production and consumption of online content . The future of education may undoubtedly go through increasing use of the internet, but it will not be determined by it.
Given the presence of Covid-19 in the country, the education sector will have to face a new challenge: the closure of schools at least until April 30 (although the evolution of the pandemic anticipates several weeks beyond this period) and the development of efforts to moderate as much as possible the negative effects on the learning of more than 36 million students. The national educational system seems little prepared to face this challenge in a context of deficiencies and negligence tolerated by various sexenios and that today are taking a painful toll:
• Lack of adequate teacher training to incorporate information technologies into the daily pedagogical experience.
• Waste and fraud in the use of billions of pesos from the treasury in the “acquisition” of computers, laptops, tablets, and various technologies that were supposedly distributed to teachers and a significant number of students, but which few today can throw out hand to access online education possibilities due to its nonexistence, lack of maintenance and loose distribution control.
• Precarious digital adaptation of the teaching materials that are used in person in the different subjects of the different educational levels for online teaching.
• Absence of servers with sufficient capacity to give simultaneous access to millions of users.
• Lack of a policy to moderate unequal access to the internet for educational purposes for a very significant number of students in the country (39.1% lack this service according to the National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Households conducted by INEGI in 2019).
• Limited strategy to guarantee the teaching of the fundamental aspects of the curriculum through state television: using channels 11, 22 and the television stations of the entities is insufficient; according to the SCT, they only have coverage of 50% of the national territory. Furthermore, it is not being accompanied by effective guides for students, teachers and parents, so that those who manage to watch these broadcasts can enhance their educational benefits.
To the aforementioned limitations are added the structural characteristics of the educational system: a precarious educational federalism with poor coordination between federal and state educational authorities. In the only meeting that, until March 31, the authorities in the National Council of Educational Authorities (Conaedu) had not even been able to coordinate to close their schools at the same time. Therefore, higher education institutions canceled face-to-face classes before the meeting held on March 14, and at least 13 states decided to advance their closure and not wait until Friday 20 as the SEP head had announced.
Along the way, few efforts were made to structure and distribute prior to such closure; basic guides to follow up on the main aspects of the curriculum that could support students and their parents for the weeks they will face in confinement. A small number of school communities were able to design a plan to maintain means of contact between principals, teachers, students and parents, in order to develop teamwork to give some kind of effective continuity to school learning in the weeks of school closings. In short, as our UNAM colleague Roberto RodrÃguez recently suggested to us, to think that the Mexican educational system has the capacity for self-management is to live in a deception and today we are witnessing it in a painful way.
In addition, in the announcement of the measure, the federal authority did not establish regulations in the workplace that could make it easier for parents to care for their children; therefore, many of them were forced to take them to their workplaces in the days leading up to the call for the widespread suspension of non-essential activities. With this, the contribution to social distancing that sought to be promoted with the closure of schools to flatten the expansion curve of the Covid-19 was diminished. The measure has been particularly challenging for single-parent households (18.5% according to INEGI) and even more so for 84% of these that are headed by women.
Under conditions of normal operation of the educational system, households would be expected to play a complementary role in student learning, reinforcing the lessons learned by students in their classrooms. But we know that this is not the prevailing reality in many homes. Now the challenge is even greater because, with the closing of classrooms, households face unattainable expectations: to be the main engine to boost student learning. There is ample evidence that truancy undermines learning; the costs will foreseeably be higher for students without the resources to access online or distance education, and / or with parents with educational deficiencies that make it even more difficult for them to be allies to continue their lessons. In this way, for at least 40% of students who are in vulnerable conditions according to CONEVAL, the suspension of classes implies fewer opportunities to learn at home, higher costs for their families for reasons of care, greater risk of dropping out of school once the pandemic is overcome due to the school delay and even means poor nutrition in the absence of breakfast and other school meals. Online education for these students is not an option.
To operate hybrid systems, students must have high-capacity internet access; that they have the necessary skills to develop learning activities in a virtual way; that teachers have the skills to design activities and teach through digital platforms; that flexible study plans exist that can be easily adapted to online work and have educational authorities interested in the development of virtual education.
If, as Edna Jaime pointed out a few days ago , the pandemic found the health system in the bones , it found the educational system crushed in its progress to provide virtual education opportunities. Not only was the budget to develop digital skills in students and teachers substantially limited, or auxiliary curricular contents were left aside for these cases, but there was also no action plan for this type of situation despite the 2009 experience with the AH1N1.
It is impossible to correct educational omissions in a contingency condition. For now, we have to take advantage of resources that, although limited, can reduce the effects on learning for those students who can consult online platforms and watch some of the lessons on television. These resources could be enhanced through two options that are currently being explored in other Latin American countries.. On the one hand, the Mexican State would have to exercise its authority and reach an agreement with the media concessionaires to use some hours of television and radio transmission that can complete the majority coverage of the national territory (Colombia has opted for this route ). On the other hand, in the framework of the national emergency, the State could reach an agreement with the main internet providers via cell phone to guarantee a free specific data plan for educational purposes (Paraguay has achieved a strategy in this regard) .
Undoubtedly, the challenges facing the Mexican educational system are complex, and even more difficult to overcome in circumstances in which not only learning is being lost, but also the social interaction of students who today do not have the possibility of living with their peers of class. In addition, the difficulties in conditions of stress in the face of the illness of family members, and the economic affectations derived from the pandemic that many families will face, make the situation that the educational communities of the country face even more complex.
In the following weeks, it is essential that the authority explore different measures to prepare for the eventual return to school. To do this, you would have to consider at least seven topics:
1. Make a diagnosis in the first two weeks of back to school to identify the state of learning with which the students return at each educational level. This will require fundamental communication between the entire scaffolding of the educational system (supervisors, principals, and teachers).
2. Deploy and accompany a strategy of leveling and reincorporation of the students to their schools to avoid an increase in school dropout. This will help detect the students most affected by the closure of their schools.
3. Adjust the school calendar and adapt programs to achieve fundamental learning in the current school year. This should consider the coordination, advice and accompaniment of teachers so that they can carry out their educational work and will necessarily entail negotiations with teachers (and their unions) to make the pertinent salary adjustments in the face of the substantial reduction of summer vacation.
4. Identify in a timely manner the students who do not return to school to recover their attendance at the classroom and thus avoid dropping out of school. For this, the effective use of school control systems and communication between school supervisors and principals will be essential.
5. Make solid progress in the development of platforms and mechanisms to face other contingencies in the future. Prevention is key, at least that's what AH1N1, natural disasters and now Covid-19 have taught us. The Mexican State cannot continue ignoring it. This will imply the development of a common set of lessons for students and teachers of the different educational levels, which can be activated in cases of contingency, and thus avoid the expectation that each teacher and school is developing an isolated remote lesson plan for these situations. .
6. Promote a rigorous and long-term project to make the educational offer more flexible, to bring it closer to hybrid educational modalities. This requires, on the one hand, a focused continuous teacher training strategy for these purposes, and, on the other hand, a curricular design in modules that favors the necessary flexibility. The urgency of strengthening the Internet access infrastructure for educational purposes is evident.
7. Budgetary adjustments and an adequate use of the resources channeled to the educational system. Something that is complex but cannot be postponed given the economic conditions for the country.
Finally, there are some aspects of educational policy with limited budgetary implications, such as making the curriculum more flexible. It is also evident that in the face of the challenges that are coming, the authorities would have to redirect educational spending that is poorly designed today and take seriously the fight against corruption in the educational field. For example: a) substantively modify the general scholarship policy to replace it with a correct targeting and support of tutors to avoid desertion of the beneficiaries; b) make a major surgery to the School is Our program with resources that today do not even have to be verified; one c) stop the undue payments that continue to be made to “commissioned” personnel to the union and to “phantom” personnel who cannot be found at their work centers.
Most of the most relevant measures to provide the educational system with adequate and sufficient elements to face the medium and long-term consequences of the ongoing pandemic, and prepare for future contingencies, demand budget adjustments and an adequate use of channeled resources. to the educational system. The omissions to strengthen and professionalize the Mexican State in multiple aspects, in this case the educational one, are clearly showing today their onerous cost for society as a whole. Therefore, it should not be postponed any longer once the emergency we are facing is overcome.