He hybrid model proposed by the Xunta for the digital book, as a combination between the screen and paper resources, will be reflected already in the next course. The publishers that apply to create the digital content of the official curriculum in Galicia for the courses included in the project Abalar E-Dixgal They have an added requirement: complete each teaching unit with “a summary” of itin a printable format that allows the content to be reviewed”. This summary may be generated from the content itself or appear as “an additional deliverable”. Otherwise, the offer will not be successful. This is stated in the specifications for the contracting of the service, by the Agency for Technological Modernization of Galicia (Amtega), whose procedure is open but will be applied now for the academic year 2024/2025. “If the content is shown through multimedia material (videos, animations, interactive activities…), practical tasks or other formats such as diagrams, images, the ideas and concepts that we work on ourselves must be included in the summary,” is reiterated in the document.
More of 64,500 students from 630 educational centers from Galicia They studied with digital books from 5th and 6th grades of Primary Education and from 1st to 4th grades of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) this year, although near the end of the course a trickle of centers began expressing their intention to abandon it. Among the reasons given by the Parent Associations (Anpas), the need to photocopy extra content or make notebooks in which students could underline or read the content was cited. This demand will be covered in classrooms starting in September. The regional Xunta of directors also conveyed to the Department of Education in a meeting the need to update and expand the offer of teaching resources, as well as the review of existing digital books. Well, the previous contents were established through “a contract that ended” and with this new tender all digital books will be renewed and updated. That is, the previous ones will not continue in force. However, the number of publishers that will design the content is not expanded. There will still be three – the number of lots that go to competition –, although the budget of 1.07 million euros for 2024 and 2026, amounts to 13.1 million for this contract in 2025.
Of course, the Department of Education has already put several measures on the table to “improve as much as possible” the model, the result of the dialogue process opened last month with parents, directors and technicians. And he advanced that the Creagal platform, which would be aligned with the didactic programming, would function as a “added” resource for E-Dixgal. This line is developed by active teachers and teachers will be able to adapt this content to their classrooms.
Everything related to the support and assistance of the digital system is also specifically referenced, by the company (or UTE) that obtains the contract: the Documents include explicit references on remote care activities, user service and incident registration and follow-up meetings. In this regard, Education reported that in January of this year the security of the device with which students work was improved to prevent unauthorized access to inappropriate content.
And another of the groups that urged changes are families. The Xunta provided them with more information and support in digital competence.
