Hristina Ambareva, Assoc. Prof.
Institute for Philosophy and Sociology
https://doi.org/10.53656/phil2023-03s-02
Abstract. In this paper the author discusses the role of the health crises in 2019 – 2021 for the move towards new-media driven forms of education in Bulgaria. The text explores the idea coming from the field of the extension theory of technology and technological determinism paradigm that the implementation of digital technologies involves consequences for the presently dominant industrial concept of formal school education. Two cases are selected and reported in the paper as examples of digital innovators in Bulgaria prior to 2019, respectively in the secondary and vocational education (the companies of Ucha.se and Software University). The experience of ORES (“education from a distance in electronic environment”) during the emergency is discussed in comparison to their practices. Following the comparative approach between the fully digitalized practices of education developed by the private tech-companies and the new “distance education” practices adopted by the Bulgarian school system, the author studies and defines the observed shift in the concept of education. While contextualizing and analyzing this shift within the broader frame of the digitalized education, the author is considering its implications for the concept of socialization as well.
Keywords: distance education; Covid-19; digitization; Bulgaria; secondary school; literacy.
