Use of digital tools for teaching in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic

As a consequence of the pandemic produced by COVID-19, in March 2020, Spanish educational institutions are forced to suspend face-to-face teaching activities by focusing on their performance in a virtual way, which implies a redesign of the usual teaching and learning situations. In this sense, educational digitization with the use of digital tools for teaching, and the digital competence of teachers acquire a fundamental role in the teaching and learning process at all levels of the Spanish educational system. This study analyzes the use made by 108 active teachers of fifteen digital tools for teaching (educational platforms, blogs, wikis, gamification tools, tools to create collaborative content, interactive content, to create surveys, to record audio and video, to edit videos and to program) during the months of confinement, and examines their evaluations regarding the use of these tools, through the application of an online questionnaire designed ad hoc. The reliability of the instrument is examined and a factorial analysis is developed with which nine components are obtained that explain 71.643% of the total variance. Subsequently, descriptive and parametric analyzes were carried out, finding statistically significant differences in the use of digital tools when were considered as grouping variables: sex, civil service, autonomous community and type of educational center. In light of these results, the educational implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent confinement, as well as, the substantial change produced in the teaching and learning process with educational digitization materialized in the use of various digital tools for teaching.