NT - Martins - eLearning Methodology

8/3/2019 NT - Martins - eLearning Methodology

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E-Learning Methodology: The Debate Forums

Felipa Lopes dos ReisUniversidade Aberta

[email protected]

Antnio Eduardo MartinsUniversidade [email protected]

Abstract

This communication approaches the construction of the interactive process in the forming ofcooperative communities from the analysis of debate forums in the online environment. Theselection of this thematic is motivated by the experience as teachers in the E-Learningregime at Universidade Aberta and by the recognition of the relevance of forums in theconstruction of learning environments.

The utilization of several forms of interaction and networked communication institutes a newbranch of education that is denominated as long-distance teaching. The exponential growththat has occurred in the last decades within this teaching methodology is due totechnological advances, especially in the virtual spaces of the internet that result in newpedagogical approaches and numerous possibilities of quick and easy access to information.

The debate forums, as pedagogical tools, contribute positively to promote a change in

attitudes and methodologies in the teaching/learning relationship, in the sense of proximityand overture of the university to the world, for its organizational and temporal characteristics.

In this paper we explain the importance of debate forums in the technologic evolutioncontext.

Keywords: Cooperative Learning, Debate Forum, Learning, Long-Distance Teaching,Teaching

1. Contextualization

The change in social structures allowed not only the appearance of new learning contexts,but also the appearance of new ways to create knowledge.

The new reality of the socio-cultural environment transformed, in a significant way, thestructure of the economic fabric, and teaching, as a standpoint of sustainability of modernsocieties, as to adapt to the new constant demands, where change, and subsequentadaptation, is an unavoidable reality (Martins, 2006).

The interaction between teacher and student allied to the new network structures madepossible the existence of communities with specific characteristics and with the capacity toconstruct knowledge.

Presently we live in exponential growth of the potentials of communication and informationtechnologies, which has caused great changes in daily social, cultural and economic routine.

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The revolution weve been living in for the past decades has also brought up new thoughts inthe educational context and the permanent development of communication and informationtechnologies has given potential to educational strategies, mainly in long-distance teaching.

In the beginning of long-distance teaching, the most utilized learning theory was thebehavioural theory that considers that the students answers are always possibly reinforcedby some award system. This was the time of the hegemony of Programmed Instruction aself-study system with emphasis on content, considered the apogee of the behaviouraleducation application.

Later, with the appearance of cognitive and constructive theories, process was more valuedthan content, as well as the students internal capacities (his perception, memory orreasoning). According to the principles of these theories, the cooperative learning networkswere strengthened and the students became motivated to better express their thoughts, todefend them, to accompany the discussion among colleagues which also contributes to theconstruction of their own knowledge.

Practically, during online classes, students must gain incentive to develop activities in whichthey are active subjects of the process, interacting with the remainder of the group, throughtechnological resources like forums, group activities, chats, e-mail exchange, constructingknowledge in a different fashion than with regular teaching.

Virtual learning environments have as an objective to create learning situations for studentsthat are away from teaching centres, so as to offer adequate solutions to thelearning/teaching process, resorting to Learning Management Systems.

The virtual classroom promotes interaction between students and teachers, through chat,giving the teacher the possibility to lecture based on a video window, resorting to a webcam

and projecting the contents in an area of didactic exposition, the students having access to itthrough a password.

The internet is becoming increasingly more a familiar means of support to the building of neweducational proposals, long-distance teaching representing a revolution in actual educationalparadigms, in so that is presents several opportunities to universities to integrate and enrichtheir didactic material, offering new interaction and communication tools between teacherand student.

The main theories of long-distance education brought to the pedagogical environment a newperception of the dimension of space and time of learning.

In conventional teaching, the synchronization required as essential condition to therealization of processes is revaluated when it is developed in non-physically presentenvironments, mainly after the introduction of the internet as a pedagogical tool.

In long-distance teaching the concept of space, in the sense of physical dimension where thelearning-teaching process takes place, requires a new perspective. It is the improvedclassroom, assuming new shapes, making knowledge available to distant locations where itis of difficult access.

The new information and communication technologies, especially the networked computer,brought with them a new way of understanding distance.

The new models of education are conceived from diverse forms of communicating andconstructing existing knowledge. Rather than transmitting accumulated knowledge, means

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are made available to build knowledge from virtual communities. In long-distance teachingwe work with a different dimension of time, respecting the distinct apprenticeship times ofthose learning.

The management of time from the teachers part is a crucial point in long-distance education.The amount of time needed to administer an online course is greater if compared withtraditional teaching, for the continuous presence of the teacher, his guidance and availabilityare fundamental for the success of the course, as well as the time spent to read and reply tothe messages of students and read assignments being greater than in traditional teaching.

The modality of education in which learning/teaching activities takes place, regardless ofphysical presence, at the same time and in the same space, characterizes long-distanceeducation.

Thus, we can define e-learning as a modality of education, where teaching is constituted tothe physical and temporal distance, mediated by some form of technology both facilitatingand being an incentive of communication and interaction between students and teacher.

After all, knowledge is decisively the frontier for success in this new millennium (Martins,2000), and long-distance teaching is itself a fundamental partner for its dissemination.

2. The debate forums as a cooperative learning space

The process of teaching and learning through new spaces has expanded in the last twodecades. The expression learning space indicates in its traditional application, classroomand library. However, the new learning spaces present a different connotation, beingimaginary spaces.

Thus, the meaning of the term virtual learning space goes beyond the limits of the conceptsof time and space, mainly with the emergence of the networked society, new virtuallearning spaces have been establishing themselves from the creative access and use of newinformation and communication technologies.

In the virtual learning space there are no spatial limits and disposition, the internet allows alldistance to be overcome originating a world of limitless knowledge and information.

Cooperative learning is made through group assignments and mutual help among students,for the purposes of cooperative learning are amply utilized because the collective tools madeavailable by the internet both helps and offers this form of teaching.

Virtual support platforms to both teaching and learning, also called Learning ManagementSystems of virtual learning environments, are considered to be spaces contained with theinternets cyberspace, composed by various components that are responsible for thecommunication, interaction and availability of contents in the format of text, images andsound, allowing the construction of a community and making available tools that facilitatedthe contact of students among themselves and with the teacher.

Forums are applications destined for network use, made available on an intranet or theinternet, from a web server that supports dynamic contents supported by database. So,forums allow students and teachers to communicate from a distance in an asynchronousway.

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Although there are many forms of asynchronous communication such as e-mail, forums havemany advantages, among them, the establishment of a notion of community, of group spirit,addressing messages to several students simultaneously.

The utilization of forums facilitates a group dynamic favourable to integration by the studentsand promotes the open work habits so common in the scientific community.Communication through forums creates a spirit of loyalty among students because thequestions and doubts are public, allowing a global following of interactions, making possiblefor the teacher to have a global perspective of the interest and commitment by his students,and, to them, allows to benefit from the questions of their colleagues to clarify their owndoubts, allowing for a less compromised participation.

Forums promote a space that facilitates the emergence of different perspectives andquestions, so as to obtain diversified contributions to the resolution of problems and theelaboration of projects, allowing the exchange of experiences, the debate of ideas and theconstruction of new knowledge, space by excellence of asynchronous communication.

The forum is also characterized as a cooperative learning community and the creation ofcommunities emerges from the web, motivated by the openness and ease of electroniccommunication.

In the teaching/learning environment the forum is a learning tool used to foment debateamong users, requiring a significant amount of time for complete integration in the group.

An aspect that must be emphasized is the perception of the specific of each forum, wherethe clarity about its utilization and respect for the proposed topic must be preserved. Fromthis observation, which is usual, we incur the existence of forums denominated as thematic,whose objective is to focus on the emergent reflections of group debates, as differentiatedspaces, where users can deal with questions, sharing difficulties and dialogue over diverse

subjects. Forums are, equally, a powerful tool for dialogues and exchange of experiencessubsequent to the reading of bibliographical material recommended by the teacher.

After all, one of the main strategies in this type of teaching is the cooperative work and theinterchange of ideas, the students being encouraged by the teacher to interact amongthemselves, participating in the forums in the logic of continuous learning. The conversationbetween students represents an indication of cooperative learning in the way that theexchange of experiences originates, generally, a growth in personal knowledge, thus, thestudents arent restricted to receive information strictly from the teacher or to interact strictlywith him.

The cooperative community is also characterized by the sharing of resources, its sense, the

diversified authors of learning, pleasure in divulging their breakthroughs, such as texts,references, authors, events, etc.

The process of constructing cooperative communities brings out quite often movements thattranscend the virtual space itself, bearing witness to the fact that, in the specific case ofUniversidade Aberta, they are numerous, students that feel the need for a greater approach,namely, through meeting personally.

3. Final considerations

Debate forums are easy to use, being accessible to all and constituting an asset in thelearning/teaching process and enhancing the universitys community.

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However, the predisposition to using the forums assumes the existence of specific tools.

Throughout this article, we reflected on the importance of debate forums as spaces ofcooperative learning, where we mainly encounter the value of different experiences, thereflexion of studied material, the construction of knowledge, articulating between what isknown and the new information being assimilated.

A primary facet is its structure as an essential tool for the existence of dialogue, in a virtuallearning environment, being a space for the construction of knowledge where users resort,by participating in a forum, to an exponential increase of knowledge, since they must initiatetheir participation with the reading of already existing messages by colleagues to, only later,add their contribution and present new ideas, new reflexions and new contributions.

We must never forget that the fundamental difference between regular educationalprocesses and those pertaining to long-distance education concern to asynchronouscommunication and absence of face-to-face contact, situation that the teacher must bothminimize and habitually, work around, for the sake of educational success.

The development of a society is also measured by the degree of maturation of its communityof educational learning, for only species capable of continuous evolution are capable ofsurvival, as theorized by Darwin. The capacity to evolve, progressively, in technological toolsis important, but the motivation for learning, the creation of true learning communities, onlyresults from the combined effort of the human being, the centre of all things.

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NT - Martins - eLearning Methodology