Examining Social, Cognitive and Teaching Presences in an Online Teacher Development Course Using WhatsApp and Community of Inquiry

Over the last decade, advancements in digital technologies have raised the interest of educators in all areas. Mobile learning, specifically, has drawn great attention for its potential to promote opportunities for mediating peer interactions. Drawing on the Community of Inquiry framework Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s (2000), this paper reports a quantitative analysis of the 1,670 interactions among 38 [elementary/high school teachers of Portuguese from around Brazil who participated in a 7-week continuing education course via WhatsApp. The findings show a high level of social presence at moments that the construction of collective knowledge takes place during the course

Aprendizagem móvel no contexto de formação continuada: um estudo sobre affordances emergentes de interações de professores de inglês via WhatsApp

Com base no conceito de affordance, discutimos neste artigo a integração de dispositivos móveis na formação continuada de professores de inglês e investigamos as percepções desses professores sobre o uso desses dispositivos, bem como as ações advindas dessas percepções. Os resultados, pautados na análise do corpus gerado nas interações via WhatsApp e de um questionário, indicam que os professores percebem os dispositivos e aplicativos móveis como ferramentas que podem ser usadas em sua formação e prática. As affordances mais recorrentes, entretanto, referem-se ao uso dos materiais de áudio produzidos durante as interações via WhatsApp para o desenvolvimento das habilidades orais dos próprios participantes

Comunidades autônomas de aprendizagem on-line na Perspectiva da Complexidade

Exportado OPUSMade available in DSpace on 2019-08-13T05:37:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 junia_carvalhofbraga_tese.pdf: 10295490 bytes, checksum: f7f7a786b5820c8cf0a0e4442d0e35bf (MD5) Previous issue date: 17A criação de comunidades de aprendizagem on-line tem recebido destaque na área da Educação à Distância por se tratar de uma modalidade pedagógica que preza a colaboração. Um dos desafios apontados em estudos nessa área consiste em buscar o melhor entendimento de fatores que possam facilitar a construção de significado compartilhado em contextos colaborativos on-line. Com base nesse entendimento, adoto como eixo orientador deste estudo as teorias sobre grupos, comunidades de aprendizagem e colaboração on-line bem como algumas noções da teria da complexidade que servirão de base epistemológica para as análises e discussões desta pesquisa. Além dessas noções, apresento uma revisão detalhada das presenças social, cognitiva, e instrucional nos termos do Modelo de Comunidade de Busca de Conhecimento de Garrison, Anderson e Archer (2000) que nortearão a análise e discussões dos dados deste trabalho. Neste estudo busco evidências empíricas de propriedades dos sistemas complexos tais como emergência, auto organização, adaptabilidade na experiência colaborativa on-line bem como padrões emergentes, fatores e elementos que possam influenciar positiva ou negativamente a colaboração e a construção de significado neste contexto. Para tal, a análise deste estudo será pautada nas interlocuções de cinqüenta alunos que interagiram em pequenos grupos, aqui denominados comunidades de autônomas de aprendizagem on-line, sem a intervenção direta da professora em um curso ofertado pela Faculdade de Letras UFMG. Demonstro através da analise dos dados que das interações entre os pares das comunidades autônomas de aprendizagem on-line emergem padrões de dimensões sociais, cognitivas, instrucionais e gerenciais tais como a reciprocidade, a construção compartilhada de significado, a liderança distribuída bem como o caráter fractal das comunidades do curso Dimensões Comunicativas. Acredito que a melhor compreensão das características, funcionamento e padrões emergentes dessas comunidades possa contribuir para as discussões voltadas as práticas colaborativas em ambiente virtual.The creation of on-line learning communities in distance learning has been recognized as a pedagogical intervention capable of promoting the construction of shared knowledge. One of the challenges researchers are faced with is the need to advance understanding of how to facilitate the construction of shared meaning in on-line collaborative contexts. Based on this idea, I have adopted theories on groups, learning communities and on-line colaboration as well as some notions borrowed from complexity theory as a foundation on which to epistemologically analyze and discuss this research. In addition, I present a thorough review of such elements as social, cognitive and instructional presences under the Community of Inquiry Framework defined by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000), which will guide the analysis and discussions of the data in this work. In this study, I seek empirical evidence of the properties of complex systems such as emergence, self-organization and adaptability in the collaborative on-line experience as well as emerging patterns, factors and elements that may positively or negatively influence collaboration and the construction of meaning in this context. To that extent the analysis of this study will center around the interlocutions of fifty students that interact in small groups herein termed autonomous on-line learning communities without the direct intervention of the teacher in a course offered by the School of Languages and Literature of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). I have demonstrated through data analysis that out of the interactions among the pairs of the autonomous on-line learning communities arise patterns of social, cognitive, instructional and managerial dimensions such as reciprocity, construction of shared meaning, distributed leadership as well as the fractal character of the communities of the course Dimensões Comunicativas. I believe that a better understanding of the characteristics as well as emerging and working patterns of such communities can contribute to augment discussions on collaborative practices in a virtual environment

Fractal groups: Emergent dynamics in on-line learning communities

Drawing on complexity theory, this work discusses the complex dynamics and emergent patterns of on-line learning communities based on a doctoral study in the area of Applied Linguistics. The analysis will center on the interlocutions of fifty students who interacted in small groups without the teacher's direct intervention, in an undergraduate course offered by the School of Languages and Literature at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. By analyzing the data, I demonstrate that out of the interactions among the peers of autonomous on-line learning communities arise opportunities for the construction of shared meaning, distributed leadership, as well as other dynamics. I also demonstrate the fractal nature of these communities. Moreover, I discuss how these findings shed light on the creation and development of course designs for large groups

Connecting, swiping, and integrating: mobile apps affordances and innovation adoption in teacher education and practice

ABSTRACT: Despite society’s adoption of mobile devices, we have yet to learn whether teachers perceive these artifacts as an innovation and what their potential is for teacher development and practice. This study aims to answer the following questions: what does mobile application affordances teachers perceive for their professional development and practice? What do these affordances reveal concerning Rogers (2003) innovation attributes, namely: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability? The analysis of eleven teachers’ narratives indicates that teachers do perceive the affordances of their devices for professional development. As for instruction, these teachers report that lack of school equipment and the need for a curriculum that includes the use of emergent technologies may indicate a low degree of compatibility, an attribute concerning a social system’s values. The reported affordances indicate the need for a new value system if the adoption of mobile learning is to take place in formal education

Blogging: agency, mindset and literacy

In this article, we discuss the concepts of agency, mindset and literacy in order to investigate, in the light of complexity theory, three groups of teachers and their blogging practices. Our aim was to check if formal teaching of digital technologies have ‘disturbed’ the traditional literacy behavior of our participants and changed their mindsets. We visited their blogs to check if they went on blogging after the end of the course and emailed them a questionnaire to learn about their experiences with this new literacy and to collect their opinions about blogging. We realized that just a few blogs were relatively active and that the majority of the teachers had not incorporated this new literacy into their teaching practices. Nevertheless, the results do not allow us to state that those teachers have not changed their mindsets because they might have migrated to other digital contexts

Mediating Interactions in Mobile Learning: A Quantitative Study Examining Social, Cognitive, and Teaching Presences Via WhatsApp

Advancements in digital technologies have raised the interest of researchers, educators, and teachers. Mobile applications, specifically WhatsApp, have drawn great attention in the educational context for their potential to mediate interactions (Braga, Correa Jr. & Martins, 2017; Gunter & Reeves, 2018; Kukulska-Hulme, 2010). Although there are several claims of the benefits of mobile learning for mediating discussions, there is a need to explore how the interactions take place in social spaces like WhatsApp. This application is currently used by over one billion users in 180 countries and relies on several features such as text message, voice message, sharing of video and PDF files, besides allowing voice and video calls (WhatsApp, 2015). Drawing on Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s (2000) Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, this presentation reports on the use of WhatsApp as a social space for collaborative discussions using mobile and online learning. Thirty-eight teachers from around Brazil interacted in a continuing education course via WhatsApp during seven weeks in 2017. Although this application needs further studies with respect to whether it is appropriate to accommodate interactions of higher order thinking, especially those that indicate social, cognitive, and instructional presences in Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s terms, this quantitative study aims at identifying social, cognitive, and teacher presences that emerged during the course interactions with teachers in Brazil. The 1,670 interactions that occurred during the course were blind-coded under Garrison, Archer and Anderson’s categories so that social, cognitive, and teacher presences could be identified. The findings show evidence of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence at moments that the construction of collective knowledge takes place during the course

An Examination of the use of Emojis in Online Education Grounded in the Community of Inquiry Framework

With the emerging additions of Web technologies, we are changing the way we communicate, which has resulted in the emergence of a new language phenomenon. With the ever-growing interest in WhatsApp as a social medium to accommodate pedagogical initiatives, the role of emojis as an emergent Internet language in communication channels needs to be better understood as we integrate mobile technologies in the educational context. In this mixed methods study, 61 teachers participated in an 8-week continuing education course focused on the use of mobile devices in language learning contexts. The course was taught entirely via WhatsApp for an authentic experience. Participants completed a pre- and post survey, as well as participated in weekly activities. Naturally, emojis were frequently used as a means to communicate in WhatsApp. Therefore, the following research questions guided this study: a) What types of emojis are used to support cognitive, teaching, and social presences in an 8-week continuing education course on the use of mobile devices and applications via WhatsApp? b) How do participants’ attitudes relate to the use of emoji for cognitive, teaching, and social presences in the 8-week continuing education course via WhatsApp? c) How does age relate to emoji use in the 8-week continuing education course via WhatsApp? and d) How does gender affect the use of emojis in the 8-week continuing education course via WhatsApp? These questions will be discussed in the context of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000). The CoI framework identifies elements that are crucial for success in online educational experiences and assumes that learning occurs through the interaction of three core elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. The interactions of the participants were coded based on the CoI framework. The presentation will focus on the findings from the 8-week course on the use of mobile devices via WhatsApp application, and the emergence of emojis as a new language phenomenon in distance education. Implications for K20 educators will be discussed. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2 (2/3), p. 87-105