Engl. transl.: Distance learning and media literacy skills - a survey with teachers

At the end of May and the beginning of June 2020, the Media Literacy Coalition conducted surveys - among students and teachers - in relation to distance learning from the point of view of the development of digital skills and media information literacy. A total of 481 students and teachers took part in the surveys by filling in anonymous questionnaires, which aim to explore a certain aspect (activities, methods, approaches) of the learning process in a virtual environment that is relevant to the development of students' digital skills and media literacy. Based on the results and of the analysis of the two surveys, both the deficits and the good examples and practices in the work of teachers were identified and the next steps related to the development of methodology and resources for overcoming the difficulties were outlined.

Unlike the survey of lower and upper secondary students, this survey sheds light on the full range of applications that teachers use for educational purposes - but not necessarily for teaching and / or testing. Teachers' interest in different applications for communication, teaching (lesson presentation) and other ways of interacting with students should be encouraged. Many teachers continue to conduct the learning process by trying to simulate live lessons in the classroom, instead of adapting their methodologies to the new educational environment. More than a third of the teachers use online chat, with approximately one in ten respondents indicating only this type of application, although products such as Viber or Facebook are not appropriate and not only do not offer the necessary tools and environment for the learning process, but create a prerequisite for teachers to stimulate children under 14 to use Facebook - something that poses a risk to the children themselves and is not permitted by the Bulgarian law. Every second participant in the survey stated that at least once he or she had given his students a task to work in a team. Given the fact that services such as Teams and Classroom provide very good opportunities for collaborative activities, it can be assumed that respondents in this way among users of any of these platforms a) do not know their functions well enough, b) work with students who do not know their functions well, or c) need additional qualification related to performing creative and educational activities in a team online. About 1/3 of the respondents answered negatively to the question whether they introduced the students how to work in a team in an online environment. 2/3 of the teachers who took part in the survey acquainted their students with the methods and criteria for finding and comparing sources of information, but only 37% answered positively to the question whether they gave such a task to the students. Only 4 teachers (1%) declared that they gave such a task every day and only two of them (0.5%) explained to their students how to work with information sources. A single teacher declared that he or she explained to the students what are fake news and ways to spot them and only eight had given a fact-finding task in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.