Interações e aprendizagem colaborativa em uma comunidade virtual de aprendizagem de um curso de licenciatura semipresencial: uma análise referenciada no paradigma teórico da cibercultura

Abstract

The contemporary is marked by changes caused by technological innovations which reflect in new ways to live, to communicate, to learn and to teach, through changes caused by advances in the computational area. Societies organize new forms of community, and in the so-called information society, they constituted as a mean of organization and sociability in cyberspace. These new ways of living and communicating also affect the teaching and learning contexts, where the interactions in Virtual Learning Communities (VLC) can be articulated from these new forms of sociability and learning. The present study analyzed the interactions of participants (students and a course instructor) in on line degree course at a Federal University and Collaborative Learning process present in these interactive actions. Some characteristics of these new practices and social experiences were analyzed in the context of educational practices and learning, including relation among students, from theoretical formulations in Cyberculture. The methodology was based on the theoretical tradition of Ethnography. Considering the part of the data collection occured in the cyberspace, called upon the methods of Virtual Ethnography. The analysis of the interactions of the participants in the virtual learning environment indicated the occurrence of a Collaborative Learning Process and the formation of a Virtual Learning Community. It was concluded that, through interactions by computer, were created social links among participants and were developed the sense of belonging in a community. However such occurrences do not corroborate some concepts and practices of Cyberculture which constitute the Virtual Communities in cyberspace, with a view of didactic and pedagogical procedures and objectives and learning which guided interactions in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).