Due to the latest changes in our society, it is necessary to offer students of different school stages new skills and abilities in line with current challenges. The digitization of curricular contents, the web accessibility and the use of mobile devices in the classrooms constitute one of the conditions to establish the new pedagogical order that is demanded for schools in the 21st century (Lindgren, 2015; Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Unesco, 2012). Education professionals must be aware that changing the media to transmit the curriculum content does not guarantee the achievement of good academic results. All of this makes us wonder: to what extent the presence of technologies can stimulate changes in teaching models? And, what are the functions of digital content in schools?
Undoubtedly, the different administrations have been, for years, promoting experimental programs that promote the transfer of technologies to school systems (e.g. Digital Culture Plan at School). Among these programs, we highlight those that provide technological equipment and Internet access in educational centers and, on the other hand, those that introduce the use of mobile devices, such as tablets, for curriculum development in the classroom. Both lines of action are linked to guidelines laid down by the field of production and distribution of digital content (Bustamante, 2011).
The presence of these technologies affects both the design and development of the curriculum (Gimeno, 2015) and the management of the institution. In fact, the migration of content in traditional format —the textbook— to the digital one is linked to the demand to facilitate a new model of government in the centers. The “management revolution”, as Ducker (1993, p. 51) points out, has succeeded in placing “management” first, leaving “the factors of production” in the background. Management is "providing knowledge to find out how existing knowledge can be applied to produce results".
The inclusion of tablets in classrooms, along with other didactic resources, does not lead to the consolidation of a non-hierarchical management model, as Díaz, Civís y Longás (2013, p. 219) point out. It is alluded to a management model where centralized control is maintained, in which accountability is presented through continuous assessments of contents, formats and knowledge produced and reproduced in classrooms.
In this contribution we present the evolution of a research that analyzes the implementation of digital devices and the transformation of curricular contents. This research begins in a pre-competitive research project funded by the University of Valencia, where the transfer of technologies is studied as a resource that offers to the educational institution a new organizational and management system. Specifically, it offers the analysis of the transition from the traditional textbook to the digital one. Once finished, we tackle a new project of the National R&D&I Plan (Escuel@ Digit@l, EDU2015-64593-R), which continues the objective of analyzing the current state of production, distribution and use of didactic materials in digital format
