ANALYSIS of the PROCESS of EDUCATIONAL ASSIMILATION THROUGH the USE of TECHNOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Resumen

El Programa Sectorial de Educación 2013-2018 establece el mejoramiento de las Instituciones de Educación Pública, a través de la aplicación de tecnologías que incidan en el proceso de asimilación educativa, para lograr que los Sistemas de Gestión Tecnológica (TMS) permitan la transferencia y asimilación de tecnologías que desempeñan un papel predominante en el trabajo de rutina de las Instituciones de Educación Básica y Superior de nuestro país. La gestión de la tecnología incluye todas las actividades relacionadas con la capacidad de una institución para utilizar tecnologías, obtenidas internamente o externamente, para mejorar la eficiencia en el proceso educativo, la estandarización de procesos y su conceptualización permitirá el desarrollo de metodologías más acordes con las necesidades de las instituciones educativas. Este artículo presenta una visión general de la importancia de los sistemas de gestión tecnológica para la adquisición, asimilación y transferencia de nuevas tecnologías que brindan a las instituciones la capacidad de ofrecer educación vanguardista e interactiva con laboratorios, equipos, aulas y tecnología de vanguardia. Herramientas que sean funcionales y que se adapten a las particularidades de la infraestructura existente, personal y complementos tecnológicos.


Palabras clave: Manejo Tecnológico, Educación.

Abstract

The Sectoral Education Program 2013-2018 establishes the improvement of public education institutions, through the application of technologies that impact the education assimilation process, in order to achieve this Technological Management Systems (TMS) should allow the transfer and assimilation of technologies, which play a predominant role in the routine work of our country's basic and higher education institutions. The management of technology includes all activities related to the capacity of an institution to use technologies, obtained internally or externally, so as to improve efficiency in the educational process, the standardization of processes and their conceptualization will allow the development of methodologies more in line with the needs of educational institutions. This paper presents an overview of the importance of technology management systems for the purchase, assimilation and transfer of new technologies that provide institutions with the ability to offer avant-garde and interactive education with laboratories, equipment, classrooms and state-of-the-art tools that are functional and that adapt to the particularities of the existing infrastructure, personnel and technological supplements.


Keywords: Technological Management, Education.

1. Introduction

One of the fundamental guidelines of the Sectoral Education Program 2013-2018 (SEP, 2013) is the Objective 6 “"Promoting scientific and technological education as essential for the transformation of Mexico into a society of the knowledge", according to the established strategies, the 6.1 sets "Strengthen the analytical and creative capacity of Mexicans with a modern vision of science and technology" by supporting innovative and creative projects, improvement of public educational institutions, through the application of technologies that allow to promote innovation, technology and science among children and young people, which leads to the acquisition and creation of necessary skills to maximize their work, performance or to continue their studies at subsequent levels. Technological Management Systems (TMS) aim in the assimilation and transfer of technologies, which play a predominant role in the routine work of our country's basic and higher educational institutions.

In order to achieve this objective, it is necessary for schools, institutes and universities to have the TMS that permit to bring a technology transfer strategy out for the identification, selection, acquisition, adoption and assimilation of the technologies which will attend, develop and apply the necessary knowledge that equally students, parents and business sector demand.

To do this, technologies related to the critical factors of competitiveness that actually transform the teaching-learning process within educational institutions are required. Therefore, the introduction of a technology within schools not only refers to their purchase and installation, but must also include the identification of the technical needs of the teaching-learning process, solution providers and assimilation activities of the technologies acquired, all these activities mentioned before regulated by the TMS.

2. The analogy between the teaching-learning process and the transformation processes.

In the education field there is a general agreement in which learning is defined as a change of behavior; this behavior modification is, accordingly, the result of a process in which various factors related to the dimensions of teaching and learning, from where the teaching-learning process arises (Bauleo, 1979). Thus, it is established that during this Process the student (which can be considered as the raw material) is processed by educational institutions, which apply a set of technologies (process, operation, equipment and product) to "transform" it when leaving such processes with a modified behavior, becoming a professional that meets the demands and needs of the labor market. This conception seems to have similarities to the processes realized in the transformation industry where the raw material enters, undergoes a series of processes or modifications through a set of technologies, to become a finished product, which will comply with the specifications, expectations and needs of customers.

The standardization of processes and their conceptualization will allow the development of methodologies more in line with the needs of educational institutions, but under a clear, precise and standardized scheme, which is why it is necessary to define the main characteristics to be taken into account for the management of technology within them.

3. Technologymanagementinsideinstitutions

The management of technology includes all activities related to the capacity of an institution to use technologies, obtained internally or externally, so as to improve efficiency in the educational process (Navarro et al. 2006). As shown in Figure 1, technology management activities can be grouped into five areas (Del Rey & Laviña, 2008):

Figure 1. Technology management activities.

In order to a technology management program contributes to the transfer of technology, it is necessary to define and implement a technology strategy that identifies the technologies to be acquired or developed, but at the same time to improve the teaching-learning process (Ortiz & Arbonies, 2006).

4. Types of technologies and innovation within the education sector

In education, the implementations of technologies that allow efficient communication between individuals through electronic means have been a great impact. These technologies have had effects and reaches in the social, economic, labor, legal and political structure that directly affect the educational processes offered by different institutions (Cabrero, 2006). These new technologies, with basic characteristics that contain technologies applied in education, identifying elements such as: immateriality, penetration in all sectors, interconnection, interactivity, instantaneity, creation of new expressive languages, segmented and differentiated audience automation, diversity, innovation, among others (Cabrero, 2006). With the above in mind, it is most appropriate to make a classification of the technologies used in the teaching-learning process that includes all the characteristics mentioned above, but which is compatible with the technology management system and its transference. First of all, a series of criteria should be taken as a starting point for an adequate classification, so that Badia (Badia & Monereo, 2005), who identifies six types of educational aids offered Through technology, are described below.

Supporting the understanding of learning activity: This type of educational aid aims to get the student to give meaning to the learning objectives of the proposed activity. It is also intended to understand the basic characteristics of the organizational issues of the didactic task (Barberá et al., 2006). With this kind of educational aid, the student must be able to express in a clear way the characteristics of each of the tasks that make up a didactic sequence, especially in three aspects: 1) what the student is expected to do (both in relation to the teaching process –learning as in relation to the product to be delivered, which may be the achievement of a specific competence in their professional training), 2) what will be the organization of the joint activity (especially, what relationship should have with the teacher and peers during the teaching-learning process), and 3) what role plays the content during the whole activity (the assimilation of knowledge through the activity and that will allow to obtain the competition that will be part of the final product). Often, to provide this type of educational aids is used, technologically speaking, the use of interactive teaching plans, platforms for planning, among others (Barberá & Badia, 2004), which explain these aspects and detail those key questions to benefit the understanding of the learning activity.

Learning planning: This type of educational aid serves the students to favor the temporary planning of learning actions that allow him to achieve the proposed educational objectives, a substantial part of the operation of educational institutions. Technology-based aids to promote learning are often calendars, electronic calendars, collaborative decision-making environments, or programs that provide reminders to students to remind them of the timing and deadlines for carrying out activities learning.

Provision of program content: In this type of educational aid, the student is given access to the contents that are the learning objective, both basic and complementary contents. Different technologies can be used depending on the content being addressed. For the conceptual contents can be enough the presentation in different formats hypermedia (text, visual representations of all type, audio, video, etc.); For those of a procedural and strategic nature, other formats should be sought that allow the presentation of dynamic representations of information, such as modeling, simulations or interactive guidelines (Hill & Hannafin, 2001).

Support for the construction of knowledge: This type of educational aid aims to provide the student with different materials or tools that support the learning process (practices developed through pilot plants, laboratories or specialized teams). In this category of aid, there are those designed for: searching, accessing, selecting and manipulating information resources, and to interpret and evaluate their usefulness; the information graphic organization; the elaboration, the reflection and the ideas beliefs and theories essays; knowledge representation and student comprehension (Macgregor & Lou, 2004) and, the generation of information to be sent to others. The use of computers as cognitive tools (Salomon et al., 1991) (Lajoie, 2005) integrated within educational technological environments is a key part of this kind of educational aid provided by technology, specifically to support cognitive skills and learning strategies used in unstructured learning tasks, often based on complex problem solving.

Communication and collaboration: This type of educational aid allows the student to know when, where, how and to what degree the instructional and social interaction between the student, the teacher and the rest of the students will be promoted.

Assessment of learning progress: This type of educational aid should allow the students the periodic knowledge of the progress they are making in their learning process; for example, what content they have learned properly, what aspects of their learning need to be improved, and how to properly build knowledge. In the technical environment, the technologies that are responsible for providing this type of support are self-corrective tasks, written work annotation programs, intelligent tutoring systems, or instruments such as the electronic portfolio (Barberá et al., 2006).

Integration of educational aids in constructivist teaching and learning environments: Currently, one of the main challenges related to teaching-learning processes with technology in higher education is the integration of educational aids that can be provided by both, humans and computers in an articulated structure or system and within specific teaching-learning processes supported by ICT (Pea, 2004) (Tabak, 2004). The redundant scaffolding aims to provide multiple educational aids according to learning needs. A support for learning may not be sufficient, since different students also have different competences and may require different types of educational aids or different levels of supporting for each of the learning needs, being a fundamental part of the operation of educational institutions.

4.1 Classification of educational technologies

Taking as reference the transfer, assimilation, maintenance, installation and operation of the required technologies, a classification of technologies is proposed, taking into account the six points described previously, as well as the analogy presented between the teaching-learning process and transformation processes. This following classification is based on the Oslo Manual (Oslo, 2005):

5. Identification of technological needs of the institution

The institution will seek to acquire technologies that are currently available in the market, that are of proven quality, guarantee the solution to their problems or needs, cost as little as possible and imply the fewest restrictions or limitations. To do so, an institution has several methods of acquisition, which are described below:

6. Adaptation of technology

The adaptation process is not easy either to talk about software, a compressor, an engine, a technology of operation of a treatment plant or devices and pilot plants for laboratories. Therefore, priority should be given to the technology that is best suited when selecting the one to be acquired (Escorsa &Pasola, 2004). There is talk of adaptation when it is required to change the design and characteristics of a technology that has been developed to operate in conditions very different from those in the region where it will be used (Gaynor, 1999).

To be able to adapt the technology, institutions must be aware that they will require the availability of directors and area managers to do so; with people prepared and experienced in redesigning and adapting these technologies; with technicians and engineers familiar with the possibilities of reverse engineering; with the necessary supporting documentation; with the necessary time and, in addition, with the economic and material resources to be able to do it.

7. Assimilation of technology

With the assimilation of technology, the process of transfer or acquisition of technology is completed, and the possibility of starting a new cycle or strengthening other acquisition processes is opened. Technological assimilation can be defined as: "A process of rational and systematic use of knowledge, by which, the one who has a technology, deepens that knowledge, significantly increasing its progress in the learning curve with respect to time. Its objectives are: first, to be competitive and, second, to be able to generate optimizations that increase quality and productivity. It is not an end in itself, it is a means for the technical functions aimed at the goal of producing a good or service within a company, are carried out with the highest possible efficiency, because they have the best and most updated information and have adequate and timely knowledge. It consists of three activities: documentation, staff training and updating"(Interdisciplinary Group on Technology Studies, 1984). The elements that make up the assimilation of technology are described below.

Documentation. To assimilate the technology must have all the information that allows understand, use or properly apply the technology acquired. Depending on the type of technology you decide to acquire, the required documentation must be part of the technology package.

Training of personnel. As part of the process of assimilation of technology, it is desirable that the institution train the personnel who will use it or who will interact, sooner or later, with it (Morote et al., 2014).

To this end, it is advisable to agree with the supplier or licensor of the technology a training program that takes into account all possible modalities, both face-to-face and distance, of training: courses, seminars, workshops, conferences, the buyer's facilities, use of training simulators in operation, reference lists, basic documentation study, technical assistance, etc.

Upgrade. It should be given in two areas: a) of the staff and, b) of the technological package. In the first case, staff should be provided with the means to do so: periodical publications and basic documents, attendance at fairs and technical conferences, contact with technology providers, attendance at refresher courses and workshops, participation in networks and professional associations, national and international, as well as the training of personnel to replace those who have separated from the institution.

8. Conclusions

This paper aims to provide an overview of the importance of technology management systems for the purchase, assimilation and transfer of new technologies that provide institutions with the ability to provide avant-garde and interactive education with laboratories, equipment, classrooms and state-of-the-art tools that are functional and that adapt to the particularities of the existing infrastructure, personnel and technological supplements.

The use of TMS in education allows the adaptation of technology for the benefit of the student community that is supported in the different educational institutions of the different educational levels; in addition, these systems allow us to make decisions regarding the processes carried out and the technology used for each one. This leads us to develop strategies that permeate the capacity of technology to positively impact the teaching-learning processes.

Finally, through the application of these systems, it will be possible to prevent the acquired equipment or technologies from becoming useful or to become white elephants within the institutions, thus achieving an efficient use of available resources.

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[a] Escuela Superior de Tizayuca, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo Tizayuca, Hidalgo, 43800, México
Correo de Correspondencia: cristopher_antonio@hotmail.com