School library in the digital age: proposal of an infocommunicational model in an educational context

Abstract

The investigation takes place in the natural environment, the school library, from 2019 to 2021, with an intended sample of 236 participants, students from the 5th, 7th, and 9th grades, teachers, and families, of the Head School of the agrupamento de escolas D. Maria II in Vila Nova de Famalicão - Portugal, intending to understand this case, this situation, in this context and in different infocommunication situations. In the light of the infocommunication paradigm, it is considered necessary to act; enhancing safer, contextualized, and timely changes, where the school library as a phygital space (physical +digital) assumes a central and updated role in the educational ecosystem. Supported by the Case Study, the methodological approach is of a flexible nature, iterative and qualitative, guided by the Design-Based Research, allowing the constant refinement of knowledge, between discovery and accomplishment. The study leading to the final proposal of a smartphone-mediated infocommunication model is supported by the literature review through bibliographic research and, a case study, in which the researcher has a close relationship with the context. It includes as technical procedures the participant observation, present across the whole process, online questionnaires applied with human mediation, allowing to know the procedures of use in smartphone inside and outside the educational ecosystem, and semi-structured interviews considering the interests and needs of the different stakeholders within the educational ecosystem. The results show that the identified features indicate an infocommunication model that promotes more intuitive, fast, attractive, and rewarding learning environments, that can allow interaction with different "actors" inside and outside the school, in a concept of just in time, anytime and anywhere, in this case, through smartphones. Keywords: School library, infocommunication process, smartphones