WEB CURRICULUM IN DISTANCE EDUCATION: CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES IN THE FACE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

The concept of Web Curriculum, developed within Brazilian curriculum studies, describes the integration between curriculum, digital culture and information and communication technologies, shifting the understanding of technology from a merely instrumental support to a constitutive element of the curriculum itself. This article aims to analyze, based on scientific literature, the Web Curriculum in the context of Distance Education, highlighting its characteristics, advantages, disadvantages and the challenges posed by the expansion of emerging technologies, particularly generative artificial intelligence. A qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach was adopted, operationalized through a narrative bibliographic review of scientific publications, prioritizing the period from 2021 to 2026, without disregarding classic works indispensable to grounding the concept. The results indicate that the Web Curriculum expands the possibilities for personalization, interaction and collaboration in Distance Education, while also exposing weaknesses related to insufficient teacher mediation, underdeveloped student autonomy, inequalities in access to digital infrastructure, and ethical risks associated with data processing by artificial intelligence systems. It is concluded that the transformative potential of the Web Curriculum in Distance Education does not stem from technology itself, but from the pedagogical intentionality that guides its use, requiring qualified teacher training, consistent curricular planning and digital inclusion policies capable of containing the deepening of educational inequalities.