Comunicar 39-ingles - Revista Comunicar

123tect end-users from harmful information. So, the teacher´snew role will be a combination of facilitatorand protector of information.In order to establish the basis for a model to diagnosebibliographic resources, Pirella and Ocando (2002)refer to the following objectives: a) to complementeducation, b) to elaborate the curriculum, c) to promoteeducational materials, d) to improve teaching practice,e) to expand creativity, f) to foster reading, and g)to ensure lifelong learning and research.5. MethodologyIn designing the research, the techniques selectedmust be completely independent of the researcher’sepistemological approach and implemented from a setof additional factors in order to answer the investigationquestion (Schmelkes, 2001). For Keeves (1988), itis important to acknowledge that in educational re -search there are different paradigms and epistemologicalways of knowing and constructing knowledge.Since it is impossible to manipulate the independentvariables, the methodology of our study was exploratory-descriptiveand non-experimental (Gómez-Zermeño, 2009). Borgman (quoted by Cabrera andCoutín, 2005) implies that any assessment encompassesaspects of evaluation and measurement that mustbe carried out in a systematic way. The initial proposalwas to begin the research with an exploratory studythat would provide the information for a descriptivestudy. To switch from the exploratory to the descriptivestudy, a new «observationguide» to assess electronic bibliographicresources was designed.The guide considered pedagogical,functional, technological, andaesthetic aspects (Marquès,2003). Each aspect evaluatedfive variables; each variable consistedof five indicators. The indicators relating tocurricular axes of the basic education curriculum(SEP, 2008) were also integrated. A pilot test was performedin order to verify reliability in two of the collections.It tested the measuring instrument, conditions forapplication and the procedures involved.6. AnalysisTo diagnose the electronic bibliographic resources,56 collections were explored during the firstphase of the project. Then, 23 collections focusing onbasic education were chosen. Lastly, a non-probabilisticsample of 10 representative collections were selectedfor analysis (Hernández, 2008, quoted by Gómez,2009): 1) International Children´s Digital Library; 2)World Library; 3) National Library of VirtualManipulatives; 4) Chile for Children; 5) New Libraryfor the Mexican Child; 6) Latin American Institute forEducational Communication (ILCE); 7) UniversalVirtual Library; 8) «Know your World» Library forChildren; 9) Storyplace; 10) The National ScienceDigital LibraryThe research results show that the 10 selectedcollections were mostly developed by public or internationalinstitutions; five call themselves «digital» andthe other five «virtual»; only two operate via distributedimplementation, the rest are independent librariesthat host their resources in a single server with directaccess. According to Druin (2003) children’s librariesoffer the opportunity to display various types of resourcesin order to strengthen educational activities. Toachieve this, the teacher must assume an active role inselecting the collections and resources.The following categories analyzed 25 randomresources per collection (250 in total) according to theindicators proposed.• Curricular axis. A high percentage of objectsmeet the demands of the curricular axis ‘explorationand understanding of the natural and social world’topics. This confirms that resources can contribute tothe development of new ways in which students mayexplore, represent and acquire knowledge (Escudero,1995). The resource must lead to young studentsacquiring transversal knowledge.Table 1. Curricular axis frequency.• Format. Sharon and Frank (2000) state thatelectronic collections house documents, HTML webpages, multimediaresources, images,sound and video.The resourcesevaluated in thestudy were mostlyin text format.• Evaluation Table 2. Format frequency.indicators. Theeva luation of electronic resources takes into accounteducational, functional and technical-aesthetic parameters(Marquès, 2003). It was found that the re -Comunicar, 39, XX, 2012© ISSN: 1134-3478 • e-ISSN: 1988-3293• Pages 119-126