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a path or a resource for learning?

User Generated

Content

José Lagarto

Universidade Católica Portuguesa

26-29 June 2012

Who am I ?

• Associated professor at Portuguese Catholic University

• In charge of master degree in ICT and Education (elearning)

• Researcher in field of elearning and distance learning

2

UGC – definitions

• UGC – user generated contet

or… User created content

Content created by users(in HE institutions… or not)

OCDE – UGC definition- It is content made publicly

available over the Internet, on a webpage, or on a social networking site accessible to a

select group of people;

- It should reflects a certain amount of creative effort - users must make a certain effort to create or recreate content and add their

own value to it;

- It is created outside of professional routines and practices - It does not have a commercial

market context…non profits!

• From the OCDE definition, UGC can be:

UGC – a concede definition

UGC

Strategies used for promote learning process (activities, sharing, collaborative work)

A final product.

UGC is content created and shared freely by University students and/or teachers and has not been done through a process of formal peer review.

From UGC to OER’s

Thousands of academic assignments or works are lost every

year – the UGC

Reusability & rights

Repository UGC

Repository OER

8

UGC – Safety and Internet – one solution

a blog, (UGC)a presentation (UGC)an eleaning course (UGC)

on the subject of “Safety and Internet”.

UGC – production phasessafety and Internet – one solution

• Phase 1 – Collecting information and designing a blog

• Phase 2 – Drawing synthesis

• Phase 3 – Building an elearning course with the material collected in phase 1

• Phase 4 – Evaluation• Face to face meeting• Questionnaire

• Phase 1 – Collecting information and designing a blog

3 groups

ABC

Collect andSelect

manual

magazines

articles

web sites

Organize and post in Blog

Phase 1 – Collecting information and designing a blog- blogging in Blackboard

• Sample of blog text

Phase 1 – Collecting information and designing a blog - blogging in Blackboard

“Trying to communicate in secret in an environment with thousands of potential witnesses, such as the Internet is, it’s difficult, and the likelihood of someone overhearing a conversation between two parties increases as the distance that separates them. Since the Internet is truly global, no secret was to be communicated through it without the help of encryption, how to preserve the reservation information.”

Phase 2 – Drawing synthesisTools and behaviours for a safe Internet use

Educational behaviour

Anti virus

Personal data, references and pic.s

Phase 2 – content presentation

Phase 3 – building an elearning course with the material collected in phase 1

Safe use of Internet Course for students, parents and teachers

Phase 3 – building an elearning course

Safe use of Internet Course for teachers

How the course works

Phase 4 – evaluation: f2f meeting

• Meeting (last classsrom activity)

Evaluation – finding evidences

• Data gathering methods

– Observation and document analysis – Online survey – Written assignment 

• research, posting and critique of selected contents to the blog in the Blackboard

Evaluation of  personal

and group work

• of content blogs of the other groupsEvaluating the quality

• that resulted from the presentations of groups

Evaluating level of

 knowledge

• elearning courseEvaluation of the final product

19

Quiz categories

Student’s perceptions about UGC strategy

20

7%

21%

71%

I found much informa-tion that it was unaware

DisagreeAgreeCompletely agree

7%

50%

43%

I found content that did not know very helpful

DisagreeAgreeCompletely agree

Student’s perceptions about UGC strategy

21

7%

21%

71%

The set of content gathered by the group covered this

topic

DisagreeAgreeCompletely agree

7%7%

7%

29%

50%

The material gathered has contributed to increase

my knowledge on this topic

Strongly disagree 

Disagree

Neither agree nor disagree

Agree

Completely agree

Student’s perceptions about UGC strategy

22

7%

14%

21%

57%

Overall, I consider that the proposed

task led me into new learning

Disagree

Neither agree nor disagree

Agree

Completely agree

7%

21%

29%

43%

The training proposal promotes an easier

learning process

Disagree

Neither agree nor disagree

Agree

Completely agree

Some conclusions from the field

Usefulness of collected information for their personal knowledge • …the main information got in the research was useful

and some of them were totally unknown. So the usefulness is evident

The collaborative way of work, a new approach to learning• … collaborative work was the added value of this

strategy

The transferability of learning outcomes to another contexts • …the quality of final products done by the groups. The

final course proposal has quality enough to be immediately used

Student’s perceptions

Some final challenges around UGC

or ?

Process

Final products

UGC

LO? inspira

tion?

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Thousands of academic works are lost every year. If the UGC is placed in an available repository it can becomes an OER and will be available to be used. The door is open for a more effective learning by using and reusing learning objects.

Thank you very much

jlagarto@ucp.pt