Virtual scenario of expanded learning in social networks

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to communicate the results that are part of the research project ‘Virtual learning scenarios at the university. Research based on the design of alternative educational proposals’, in which virtual learning scenarios defined as the combination and integration of personal and institutional environments (virtual classrooms) and social networks are studied. This integration is proposed as an alternative to e-learning practices generally focused on virtual environments created on institutional platforms. The article presents the characteristics of the virtual learning scenario, prepared for a postgraduate career in university teaching, and analyzes the results that refer to the expansion of the virtual classroom with the
use of social networks integrated into the training proposal. Results are also presented on the evaluations of the teaching staff and on the projections towards their teaching practice. Methodologically, the framework project is defined by design-based research, which admits a diversity of methods and techniques for data collection during the implementation phase. In the case of the objective that investigates the expansion of the virtual classroom, we worked with the analytics that the social networks used and with the questionnaires applied to the teachers participating in the training proposal. The analysis allowed us to determine the expansion of the virtual environment, its expansion towards other communication
and knowledge environments. Favorable perceptions were obtained from teachers
towards the use and expansion of learning environments through social networks, and incipient pedagogical projections closely linked to the forms of participation they had in the networks were discovered. In the conclusion, it is postulated that in order for online learning to take place, techno-pedagogical designs that promote
open, flexible, diverse and autonomous learning are required, which in turn requires a virtual scenario edited on a porous platform, expanded, converged and entangled with other platforms.