THE EDUCATIONAL POTENTIAL OF TECHNOLOGY: DEVELOPING SKILLS AND PROMOTING STUDENTS' AUTONOMY AND RESPONSIBILITY

The improvements carried out in the last decades in the field of Information and the Communication Technologies are significantly perceived in the educational institutions. Besides the well-known advantages from an instrumental, administrative or managerial point of view, we assist to unprecedented extension of new possibilities of social interaction as well as to the creation of new learning contexts. Thus, this work is aimed at analysing the benefits that technology can provide in the students' learning process, making special emphasis not only on the potential of these resources to favour students' autonomy and responsibility in the teaching-learning process, but also on their possibilities for the development of intercultural competences. Among the conclusions, we mainly stand out two issues: on the one hand, the urgency to improve teachers' preparation, to make the most of the pedagogical potential of the digital resources and, on the other hand, the need to deepen in the knowledge of the effects that, on a long-term basis, may involve the use of digital technologies in our students' way of behaving and of mixing with each other.