Resumo

PAEZ, Haydée  e  ARREAZA, Evelyn. OF A VIRTUAL LEARNING PLATFORM IN HIGHER EDUCATION. CASE STUDY: NICENET. ORG. Paradìgma [online]. 2005, vol.26, n.1, pp.201-239. ISSN 1011-2251.

Combining regular and virtual classrooms is an educational strategy to provide knowledge and skills at higher education institutions, avoiding participants’ need to be in the same space and time. By analogy to Kemmis and McTaggart (1992) action research model, previous students agreement, the usage of nicenet.org learning platform was planned to develop the Information Technology at Higher Education course activities, and, in so doing, to provide an alternative of collaborative work that allow in service teachers  to elaborate an instructional material to be used in their teaching learning process at higher education level, to solve a real learning problem. The implementation of this curricular strategy allowed to carry on a descriptive, evaluative, field research. Data were collected through a participant observation of synchronous class activities, and significant registers were carried on during a month. Field   notes were analyzed to detect   patterns and discrepant cases. Results show the strengths of this type of curricular innovation to achieve course collaborative work,   the efficacy of using information and communication technology in education,  as well as the need of socializing them as a learning resource.

Palavras-chave : Education and internet; asynchronous learning; collaborative work; teacher education; evaluative research.