Abstract

The aim of this article is to present an evaluation of digital teaching skills in a project funded by the National Distance Education System (SINED) in Mexico conducted on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which was designed to develop competences in teachers in the distance learning or classroom setting for the integration of open educational resources (OER). The course was conducted by the Regional Open Latin American Community for Social and Educational Research (Clarise), and posed the question: how are distance learning didactic competences using OER developed? The aim was to identify and evaluate how OER were used and the form they took throughout the stages of the open education movement. The study deployed a mixed methodology with instruments such as emailed questionnaires for the MOOC participants, viewing screens in the discussion forums and anecdotal evidence. The results show that MOOC participants were able to develop digital teaching skills, identify how to use OER and how the training process occurs in the open education movement. Constraints to the development of these skills were also seen in the acculturation in the open education movement, as well as limitations on the design of distance learning models that promote these skills and the recognition of informal learning.

Abstract

This article analyzes the educational use of digital educommunication media (DEM) by four groups of professors working at the faculties of Philosophy and Letters and of Engineering at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua (UACH) and at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Seven hypotheses and three research questions were posed, which were related to the use of DEM (specifically: images, animations, and video; presentations (PowerPoint/Prezi); digital texts; the Cloud; social media/instant messaging; and email), their qualities and the differences regarding their use, among the different groups studied. A two-phase mixed-methods explanatory sequential approach was employed, with a first phase of quantitative data collection and a second qualitative phase. A stratified sample of 177 professors was selected, which was distributed proportionally between the two selected faculties and universities. All professors completed a 144-item questionnaire in the first phase, and on the basis of their answers, ten professors were selected to be interviewed in the second phase, to ensure the diversity of the interviewed group in terms of sex, age, faculty, and educational level at which they teach, as well as their teaching experience and experience in the use of DEM. Among the results, we found that: a) the choice between using DEM or traditional media in class was not determined by teachers’ perception about their students’ learning with technology; b) the characteristics of each DEM determined its use, but the use of a given DEM was not related to the activities that it could enable; c) the professors exclusively teaching in graduate programs, the younger ones, those from UNAM, or those of Engineering did not present significant differences to their counterparts in terms of their use and assessment of DEM; and d) the qualitative data reaffirmed these trends and helped typify the challenges and opportunities of using DEM, particularly those that arose from the period of the exclusively online education model that was adopted owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the classroom requires the creation of contextualized proposals which foster in students collaboration and the use of resources to hand. This paper shows the results obtained in the analysis of the signification process which teachers and students have built through their participation in a project implementing collaborative didactic designs using ICT, in particular social networking. Focus groups were formed with 102 students and interviews with 21 teachers took place in two stages (pre- and post-), and they participated in 21 learning experiences developed at 12 schools in southern Chile. Main results reveal a positive assessment of the experience related to the motivational effects of the use of ICT and social networking among students; a considerable change in the didactic interaction inside the classroom; an interest in the possibility of collaborating with students from different contexts and from different regions; a lack of knowledge of the Web 2.0 resources available on the part of teachers, and some negative considerations on the inappropriate use of the Internet. In conclusion, the meaning-creation process of the protagonists enabled this study to gain relevant qualitative information related to didactic, technological and logistic factors in the development of learning experiences through a virtual learning platform.