Schools in an evolving digital environment: Digital renewal and its maturity

Abstract

Evolving digital technologies are infiltrating schools wave after wave. The changes taking place are viewed as the schools’ digital renewal process (SDRP). The SDRP is complex (multidimensional). It includes changes in the educational environment (physical and virtual), the educational process, and the way the school operates. The SDRP goes uneven, with individual schools at different stages. One-time observation of the SDRP allows you to fix its current state (statics). The longitudinal observations allows you to see changes in the schools’ digital renewal (kinematics). The connection of the observed changes with the impact on the general education system makes it possible to discuss the development of digital renewal under the influence of individual control actions (dynamics). The stages of penetration of digital technologies into the work of the school: computerization, early and mature informatization, digital transformation (transition to the “Smart School”) can be considered as the stages of maturity of the SDRP. The article discusses a framework for describing the processes of digital renewal of schools in an evolving digital environment and an assessment of the SDRP’s maturity.