Dissemination of knowledge in the virtual environment: organization of activities of I+D+I

Prof. Dr. Manuel Salamanca López

University Complutense of Madrid

EDUCATION AND INNOVATION

For the purposes of educational innovation, the important thing is not the age of the "computer", but the transformer of its educational use. In this regard, some considerations must be made.

At schools there are three dimensions that move at different rates:

- Administrative, usually slow in its changes.

- The technological, which is transformed with greater speed.

- The academician, whose subjects and processes differ in his rates of continuities and changes.

- Therefore, any innovation should consider the complex multidimensional nature of the educational institutions.

The TICs must make possible the construction of new social relations and new ways of sharing and recreating knowledge

ONLINE LEARNING

1. Considerations

There is unanimous agreement at the moment of point to the limitations of traditional teaching:

1. The number of pupils in the classrooms.

2. The conditions of space and equipments.

3. Number of school hours.

4. Lack of flexibility and availability: students can not access training anytime and anywhere.

Some, also, see in the virtual education good way of reducing the educational costs. In spite of it, the speech of the efficiency can be dangerous.

The experience demonstrates clearly that education based on the computer, with its continuous requirements, upgrades, maintenance, and technical support staff and administrative "does not cost no more and no less that traditional education".

2. BENEFITS

2.1. General benefits

1. It incorporates texts, fixed images, animations, videoes, sound.

2. Enables updating of the contents and activities permanently, something that the textbooks don’t possess.

3. There are no geographical limitations, because it uses all the potentials of the network, so that the markets of the training are opened.

2.2. Benefits for the student

- The user can take an active role in relation to the pace and level of work, adapting the study to your personal schedule and without problems of mobility.

- Students can recover on their own personal computers resources, to be character online.

- The online training resources do not have to focus on a single space or institution

- Also, it allows to appeal for trainers who not necessarily have to be in the same geographical space.

- High follow-up of the work of the pupils, since the formation is organized around tasks that students must perform and forward in a timely manner

- Horizontal communication among students, because collaboration is part of the training techniques.

2.3. Benefits for the University

-Allows to extend its offer training to those people or workers who may not attend to their classroom courses.

- It increases the efficacy of budgets for education and research.

3. STANDARDS

-Are rules and specifications that regulate the accomplishment of certain processes to guarantee the interoperability.

-For the producer of resource, it allows a only contents format that can be used on several platforms.

-For the students, it allows to choose between a major number of products (courses) and also that the results of his learning (credits and certifications) are more easily comparable.

3.1.What should be standardized?

Must be the subject of standardization, among other:

-The technical requirements.

-The organization of the educational contents.

-The material that will be evaluated.

-The mechanisms for the transfer of courses.

4. RISKS ON THE USE OF THE TECHNOLOGIES

- With the computer the pupils handle information and informative packages, but it is the reflection and dialogical relationship that builds knowledge.

- Imbalance between the quick development of the technology and the limited capacity to incorporate it.

- Add to the social, cultural, economic exclusions ... the digital exclusion.

- The success or the failure of the virtual learning cannot measured with the same patterns that we use for the traditional education.

- The abundance of information in the network and the heterogeneous of his quality and provenance, can confuse us to do right choice of contents.

5. Stick with the BENEFITS!

THANK YOU