Digital and Collaborative Technologies for Smarter Distance Education

Abstract

With the integration of web 2.0 and social technologies into educational practices, researchers have been faced with the challenge of providing better online virtual learning environments, that engage students in the learning processes. This challenge entails using the massive amounts of knowledge we generate in our digital footprints to provide personalized learning contents. In our research group, we have tried to tackle this challenge by answering two questions: (i) How to share, at the same time, the knowledge of a virtual course in a decentralized way in Social Networks, MOOC, VLE and others? (ii) How to provide pedagogical practices in virtual learning environments that allow students to build their knowledge in an autonomous and reflective way? In this article we present the work we have carried out to answer both questions.

Keywords

• Collaborative Technologies
• Distance Education
• Personalization
• Computational Context
• Student Protagonism
• Pedagogical Practices