THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN BLENDED EDUCATION - WHAT ARE WE DOING IN LATIN AMERICA?^1;2

ABSTRACT:

The digital transformation in education was strongly driven by the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020. Despite this event having generated advances for the faster adoption of new technologies, the fact is that many countries and institutions were already dedicating efforts to promote this transformation, for example with the adoption of blended education. Each global region has specific characteristics that can impact the way this process occurs. In this sense, this study sought to identify how far we are advancing in Latin America in terms of Digital Transformation and Blended Education based on the analysis of publications in the Scopus database. In order to achieve this goal, a systematic literature review was carried out in the Scopus database over a period of 15 years, thus seeking to identify studies before the pandemic itself. The search was carried out without the delimitation in Latin America and 111 were identified that were submitted to a bibliometric analysis. This analysis allowed the identification of only seven articles that had the first author linked to an institution in the region. None of the other articles, from other regions, researched the context of Latin America. These seven articles were then considered for the discussion of the reality of the region. It was found that the small number of studies on the region does not allow an effective understanding of how this process is taking place. In this way, an opportunity was identified for future studies that address the Latin American reality.

Keywords:
Digital transformation; Blended education; Literature review; Latin America