Rural teachers have the potential to be important agents of local development. To achieve this goal, they need to acquire high digital competence in order to effectively integrate technology into their pedagogical practices, thus enriching the learning experience of students and fostering their participation. Digital competence contributes to reducing the education gap between urban and rural areas, promoting educational equity and inclusion. High digital competence also enables rural teachers to address the specific challenges of their environment, such as cultural diversity, scarce resources, and low population density. Against this backdrop, this article presents a bibliometric review of the importance of digital competence in rural teachers in Spain, where the problem of rural depopulation, as in other regions of Europe, has been accentuated in recent years. The objective of the bibliometric review is both (i) to find the strengths and weaknesses that concern researchers in relation to the digital training of teachers in rural areas and (ii) to express them explicitly in order to contribute to propose solutions. The results reveal the growing academic and political attention being paid to this issue, highlighting the need for rural teachers to acquire digital skills to adapt to current educational demands. In addition, they point to the importance of developing specific policies and programs in Europe as well as providing training opportunities and ongoing support to ensure that teachers in rural contexts can acquire or strengthen their digital competence, thereby improving the quality of education in these areas.

Virtual reality (VR) has proven to be an efficient didactic resource in higher education after the pandemic caused by COVID-19, mainly in the Engineering and Health Sciences degrees. In this work, quantitative research is carried out on the assessments made by Latin American professors of Health Sciences and Engineering of the didactic use of VR. Specifically, the gaps by university tenure in the assessments given by the professors of each of the two areas of knowledge analyzed are identified. For this purpose, a validated questionnaire has been used, which has been applied to a sample of 606 professors. As a result, it is shown that the professors of Engineering and Health Sciences have similar self-concepts of their digital competence, but the Engineering professors give higher values to the technical and didactic aspects of VR. Moreover, in both areas, professors from private universities rate VR technologies more highly than those from public universities, this gap being wider in Health Sciences. Finally, some recommendations are offered regarding digital training and the use of VR, derived from the results of this study.

The term STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is associated with a promising pedagogical approach to improve the development of students at different educational stages. Degrees linked to a STEAM approach encourage real-world problem solving through the application of multidisciplinary knowledge. The objective of this research is to analyze the perception of Early Childhood and Primary to Secondary Education teachers on the existence of the gender gap among pre-university students in subjects related to STEAM degrees in Spain. Given the results obtained, it is possible to affirm that according to teachers, there is a gender gap among students in the early educational stages in topics related to STEAM careers, which can mark their future gender gap in university education. Given this scenario, it is necessary to continue researching the possible factors that influence the gender gap in these degrees to understand possible gender inequalities in the educational field. Furthermore, the need to implement educational strategies that promote gender equality in Spain from the first educational stages is highlighted.

El uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en el mundo educativo ha ido evolucionando hacia las TAC, las TEP y las TRIC, por ello, el profesorado se ve en la necesidad de conocerlas para poderlas aplicar de forma efectiva en sus clases. En este estudio se pretende comprobar el conocimiento que tienen 489 profesores sobre los conceptos de TIC, TAC, TEP y TRIC antes y después de recibir una conferencia sobre su significado. Para ello se ha llevado a cabo un método cuantitativo comparativo aplicando una encuesta inicial y una final sobre el conocimiento de dichos conceptos. En los resultados obtenidos se ha podido comprobar que el curso ha sido positivo para mejorar el conocimiento de los docentes sobre los cuatro conceptos y la valoración de la percepción de estos.

Spain has a serious depopulation problem in large part of its territory and mainly in rural areas, where the population density is even lower than ten inhabitants per km². An example of this depopulation phenomenon, known as “depopulated Spain”, is the region of Castilla y León. STEAM knowledge areas (Sciences, Technologies, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) are essential to achieve the socio-economic growth of the territories and, with it, the desired population growth. Faced with this challenge, STEAM graduates can help to strengthen the industrial fabric and increase economic development. The main objectives of this research are the analysis (i) of the trend and (ii) of the gender gap in STEAM degrees and Ph.D. programs in Castilla y León. The evolution of the number of enrolled and graduated students in STEAM knowledge areas in the last years was analyzed to achieve these objectives, as well as the future trend. The results obtained showed a lack of STEAM graduates in Castilla y León, as well as the existence of a gender gap. Given this scenario, it is difficult to affirm the sustainability of the research, economic, and industrial systems in the region.

El uso de las nuevas tecnologías puede favorecer el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. En este sentido, este trabajo analiza si pueden reducir los problemas de visión espacial que presentan algunos conceptos teóricos y que son difíciles de adquirir para algunos estudiantes en la etapa preuniversitaria. Para lograr este objetivo, se han desarrollado dos metodologías de forma paralela en Bachillerato, donde se estudian las redes cristalinas o redes de Bravais. En la primera experiencia se han utilizado maquetas tridimensionales de las redes además del software de diseño SolidWorks®. En la segunda, se ha aplicado una plataforma interactiva basada en realidad virtual no inmersiva (RVNI). Una vez desarrolladas las dos experiencias, los estudiantes han respondido a un cuestionario cuantitativo, con el que se han obtenido diferentes resultados sobre la percepción de las herramientas. Además, los resultados sugieren que facilitan la compresión de conceptos en 3D, favoreciendo la eficacia del proceso enseñanza-aprendizaje.