Higher education in times mediated by digital technologies

Abstract

The world changed. Human relations and relations with information and knowledge have changed. The expansion of Internet access and digital technologies have established new levels of relationship between people, processes and objects. These changes also affect educational institutions, which need to reinvent themselves so as not to be left out of this evolution. One of the contemporary challenges is to choose information and turn it into meaningful knowledge, something completely different from at least two decades ago when the challenge was to get the information. Today the information is plentiful. Access to excess information (COSTA, 2008) is possible in any location and time. It generates new needs for teaching orientation and student participation. We discuss this context of knowledge mutation from Levy (1999) and Santos (2005), which help us to understand this process and the position the university takes in this new scenario. Garcia et al. (2011), Santaella (2013) and Kenski (2015) bring to the discussion the new relationships, forms and strategies of teaching and learning mediated according to the new formative longings of subjects and contemporary society. Thus, the purpose of this text is to present reflections on the digital technologies and the needs of change in the educational process developed by the Brazilian higher education institutions.