CONTRIBUTION OF E-SCHOOLS DIGITAL CONTENT TO DISTANCE LEARNING DURING THE LOCKDOWN IN CROATIA

The aim of this paper is to introduce the results of two research studies carried out during the lockdown in the spring of 2020 in Croatia, with an emphasis on the frequency of use of digital educational content and the opinion of teachers and students regarding its implementation. The research was conducted by the agency of the Ministry of Education, CARNET. The role of CARNET has proved to be of great importance in the transition to distance learning, not only in providing technical and advisory support to schools in the transition process itself, but also through a series of activities and projects that CARNET has carried out over the past two decades. Furthermore, other national-level projects, like “School for Life”, contributed to the transition to distance learning. In order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines which required 1305 primary and 437 secondary schools to deliver lessons in the form of distance learning, as of 16 March 2020. For lower primary school students, lessons were delivered via national television, while for upper primary school students and high school students, lessons were delivered via various digital platforms.Since 2015 CARNET has coordinated the EU funded programme “e-Schools: A comprehensive informatization of school operation processes and teaching processes aimed at the creation of digitally mature schools for the 21st century”. Within the programme e-Schools digital content, have been developed for learning and teaching based on subject curricula and on cross-curricular topics for primary and secondary schools. e-Schools digital content is reviewed by experts from various fields, open, digitally accessible, and includes adaptations to support students with special education needs. As previously noted, CARNET conducted several research studies in the spring of 2020. Qualitative action research was conducted on a sample of 11 participants who included principals, teachers and pedagogues. In order to generalize the results obtained by the action research, a survey was conducted which resulted with more than 25.000 responses from principals, teachers and parents. This mixed-method research resulted with the following conclusions: the transition of the entire education system to distance learning is an extreme situation, very challenging for all participants; parental support, especially for younger students, proved to be crucial; some schools were better prepared for certain aspects of distance learning thanks to their participation in previous projects related to ICT use in education; the decision of the Ministry of Education to use a single digital platform for distance learning at the school level proved to be excellent; there was a lack of digital content for vocational subjects. In addition, a survey was conducted regarding the use of the e-School digital content for teaching, which drew answers from 121 school teachers. The survey found that 73% of respondents used digital content, and 60% of respondents used them multiple times a month or even more often. The research indicated that a greater supply of reliable and peer-reviewed digital content is needed, but also a need for teachers to strengthen their digital competencies in the area of creating and publishing digital content adapted to their context. In order for this to happen, the culture of openness in publishing and sharing digital content must become better established.