Digital skills and difficulties of the students of the Pedagogy course of the State University of Ceará (Brazil) through distance education

Abstract

Nowadays it is important that students and teachers have a good digital education in order to be able to teach and receive different contents through digital platforms. In this sense, this article aims to analyse the Pedagogy course at the State University of Ceará (Brazil) and to give a voice to the different agents who participate in it in order to find out about their training in terms of digital competence and face up to their learning in a virtual educational modality. To this end, various instruments were used from a case study, applied to 23 students. The results showed little knowledge about the use of ICT before the start of the blended learning course and revealed that the students' precarious economic conditions prevented them from accessing a computer with internet at home, which had a negative impact on academic education. Furthermore, that students are aware of the need to master ICT in the teaching of distance education (DE). It is concluded that DE students in the UECE are not well trained to interact successfully and that tutors need continuing education in digital education. To close the study, compiling the contextual analysis, a SWOT matrix is proposed.