Gender differences in students’ preferences using communication technologies to support learning: the case of Portuguese Higher Education

The main goal of the research project presented in this paper is to contribute towards a wider understanding about the use of Communication Technologies in Portuguese Public Higher Education Institutions, with a special focus on gender related issues regarding the students' perception and evaluation of the use of these technologies in supporting learning activities. Within this project this paper focuses on the results obtained about gender related differences in the activities that students prefer to carry out in learning contexts. The project already mentioned is an descriptive and exploratory study and the data was collected using an online questionnaire made available to students of all Portuguese Public Higher Education Institutions. A validated sample of 2207 students (865 boys and 1342 girls) from 36 Higher Education Institutions participated in this study. The findings indicate gender differences in student preferences using Communication Technologies in learning contexts. Female students seem to prefer learning using text-based conversation over e-mail more than male students do, and boys prefer to use programs they can control, such as video games. Significant differences between males and females are found in activities such as: contributing to websites, blogs or wikis and in learning through the creation or listening podcasts. In both cases, we noticed, through collected data analysis, that male students seem to prefer these activities more than female students. On the other hand, no gender differences were found in students preferences concerning the use of social networking applications and in the use of instant messaging in learning contexts. The results of this study are expected to be helpful for Portuguese Higher Education Institutions for they may allow a better understanding of the students' perceptions about the use of Communication Technologies in supporting learning processes

O uso de tecnologias da comunicação pelos alunos do ensino superior público Português: um projecto em curso

Este artigo descreve, de forma sucinta, o trabalho já realizado relativo ao estudo da utilização das tecnologias da comunicação pelos alunos das Instituições de Ensino Superior Público Português (IESPP) e que tem como principal objectivo identificar e caracterizar esse uso para suporte à aprendizagem. Com o presente artigo pretende-se apresentar o enquadramento teórico que sustenta a investigação, sistematizar o contexto e os objectivos gerais, e apresentar os primeiros resultados obtidos após a aplicação de um questionário online que permitem caracterizar os sujeitos participantes e os resultados obtidos em relação a alguns indicadores básicos sobre a utilização das tecnologias. Este estudo faz parte de uma tese de Doutoramento que está a ser desenvolvida no âmbito do Programa Doutoral em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas Digitais, da responsabilidade conjunta das Universidades de Aveiro e do Porto.This paper describes, in a summarized manner, some of the work already accomplished within the research concerning the use of communication technologies by students enrolled in Portuguese Public Higher Education Institutions and its profiling and characterization as a support for learning activities. The paper includes the study’s theoretical review, the outlining of its context and its main goals, and some of its first results collected through an online questionnaire used to profile the participants and gather some basic indicators related with their use of technology. This work is part of a still ongoing doctoral thesis research currently being developed within the Doctoral Program in Information and Communication on Digital Platforms, a joint degree managed by the University of Aveiro and the University of Oporto

As questões de género na perceção das competências para o uso de tecnologias da comunicação: um estudo entre os alunos do ensino superior público português

A investigação apresentada neste artigo teve como principal objetivo contribuir para uma compreensão mais alargada do uso que os estudantes do Ensino Superior Público Português (ESPP) fazem das Tecnologias da Comunicação (TC) para suporte à aprendizagem. Especificamente, procurou-se estudar a influência do género neste contexto e, no âmbito do presente artigo, apresenta-se parte da fundamentação teórica que sustenta o estudo, os objetivos e as opções metodológicas, bem como alguns dos resultados obtidos, em particular os que dizem respeito às diferenças de género na perceção das competências para o uso de TC para suporte à aprendizagem. Os resultados obtidos indicam que a maioria dos estudantes classifica as suas competências como sendo boas ou muito boas e, no que se refere à influência do género, os testes estatísticos sugerem a existência de diferenças significativas entre o sexo masculino e o sexo feminino na perceção das suas competências para o uso de TC

Frequency and user satisfaction on using communication technologies to support learning: the case of portuguese higher education

This paper presents several results from a research project about the use of Communication Technologies to support education in the Portuguese Public Higher Education Institutions. The outline of the project, the Communication Technologies taxonomy adopted and the methodology used are described. The results revealed on this paper respect to students (n = 2207) and to teachers (n = 639), and the characteristics of the sample are summarized. Some results about the frequency of use and the user satisfaction of using Communication Technologies are reported, and the next steps are indicated

Ambiente virtual de aprendizagem num contexto de b-Learning : estudo do seu impacto no desenvolvimento de competências de alunos do ensino superior politécnico

Mestrado em Multimédia em EducaçãoOs ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem poderão, na perspectiva de diversos autores, constituir-se como soluções bastante interessantes, capazes de complementar o ensino presencial e de favorecer uma participação mais activa e autónoma do aluno durante o processo de aprendizagem, consonante com o espírito de Bolonha. No entanto, ainda pouco se sabe sobre as reais influências destes ambientes no processo educativo. Assim, no âmbito da presente dissertação de mestrado desenvolveu-se um estudo com o intuito principal de se avaliar o impacto de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, complementar de sessões presenciais, na construção de conhecimento partilhado e no desenvolvimento de apetências e competências transversais e específicas, nomeadamente no domínio da edição e do tratamento de imagens digitais, num grupo de alunos do ensino superior politécnico. Para a prossecução dos objectivos propostos e tendo presente a principal finalidade desta investigação, optou-se por um estudo de caso, privilegiandose a análise, fundamentalmente, qualitativa dos dados recolhidos. O estudo decorreu em ambiente académico normal, no âmbito de uma disciplina de informática do 2º ano de uma licenciatura na área da comunicação social, sendo a professora da disciplina a própria investigadora. A experiência teve uma duração aproximada de cerca de 6 semanas e envolveu 41 alunos, maioritariamente, do sexo feminino. Durante este período, a disciplina funcionou em regime de blended-learning, apoiada por uma plataforma de gestão da aprendizagem, tendo-se realizado 6 sessões presenciais e 4 sessões a distância. A estratégia adoptada contemplou actividades de socialização através da plataforma, tarefas de pesquisa em grupo e partilha de informação bem como actividades de exploração autónoma do software em estudo, entre outras. As principais fontes de dados foram dois questionários (um Inicial e um Final); entrevistas pontuais e semi-estruturadas; um teste, na versão pré e pós; observações apoiadas pelas respectivas grelhas; notas e diário de bordo; registos automáticos da plataforma sintetizados numa grelha de análise; documentos e outros artefactos considerados relevantes. A análise dos dados obtidos permite concluir que os alunos exploraram, efectivamente, o ambiente virtual de aprendizagem, assim como consideraram importante a sua utilização no âmbito do módulo, sobretudo, pelas vantagens daí decorrentes a nível do acesso a conteúdos e da interacção com professor e colegas. Os resultados permitem ainda concluir, positivamente, sobre a adequação de metodologias híbridas na aquisição e/ou desenvolvimento de competências de cariz mais prático, tais como as que se perseguiam no módulo de edição e tratamento de imagens digitais. Para além do desenvolvimento de competências específicas, há também fortes indícios de que o modelo adoptado permitiu o desenvolvimento de outras apetências e competências transversais, nomeadamente a nível da utilização dos fóruns de discussão, do uso do correio electrónico, bem como de navegação e pesquisa de informação na Internet. ABSTRACT: The virtual learning environments may, according to the opinion of several authors, constitute themselves as very interesting solutions, capable of fulfilling presential education scenarios and promoting more active student participation during the learning process, in accordance to the Bologna higher education programme. However, there is still little known about the real influence of these environments in the educational process. Thus, in the scope of the present research, a study was developed with the main goal of evaluating the impact of a virtual learning environment on the lecturing of presential sessions, in the construction of shared knowledge and the development of appetencies and transversal and specific skills, particularly in the domain of the edition and the treatment of digital images, in a group of students at a higher education level. In order to pursue these goals, a case study was undertaken in which the analysis of the gathered data was developed according to qualitative research methods. The study took place in a common academic environment, included in an informatics course taught in the second year of a Social Communication degree, whose teacher was simultaneously the researcher herself. The experiment lasted 6 weeks and involved 41 students most of which were female. During this period, the course was taught according to a blendedlearning strategy supported by a virtual learning environment. In all, 6 presential and 4 distance learning classes were lectured. The adopted plan included, among other tasks, socialization activities with the use of the virtual learning environment, group work which involved the search and share of information, as well as autonomous exploration of specific software. The main sources of data where two questionnaires (an initial and a final); semi-structured interviews; pre and post-tests; an observation form; notes and a log-book; tracking functions available on the virtual learning environment; documents and other significant artefacts produced by the students. The analysis of the gathered data allows us to conclude that the students did, in fact, explore the virtual learning environment, regarding its use as an important asset during the module. Advantages were also shown in content access tasks and both teacher-student and student-student interaction. The gathered data also allowed us to draw positive conclusions about the adjustment of hybrid methodologies in the construction of rich and active learning environments, and also about the acquisition and development of practical skills as the ones aimed for in the module dedicated to the edition and treatment of digital images. Besides the development of specific skills, there are also strong beliefs that blended learning methodology allowed the development of other transversal appetencies and skills such as the use of discussion groups, the use of e-mail, and also surfing and searching on the internet

Práticas E Consumo de Media No Ensino Superior - Um Estudo Exploratório Com Estudantes de Comunicação Social

No âmbito deste artigo apresentam-se resultados parciais do projeto “Literacia Mediática no Ensino Superior: um estudo exploratório com alunos de Comunicação Social”, que tem como principal objetivo avaliar o grau de literacia dos alunos desta área de formação ao longo dos três anos do seu percurso académico no curso de Comunicação Social, lecionado na Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Viseu. Para a concretização dos objetivos, desenvolveu-se um estudo descritivo e exploratório e optou-se pela implementação de um questionário online para a recolha de dados. Especificamente neste artigo analisam-se os resultados relativos à primeira secção do questionário e que dizem respeito às práticas e consumo de media pelos estudantes. Os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que os alunos recorrem essencialmente às redes sociais e à televisão para se informarem sobre o que acontece no país e no mundo, sendo o jornal impresso o meio menos utilizado. Em termos do uso de dispositivos e tecnologias, a maioria dos estudantes considera que as principais funções da internet são informar e entreter, usam maioritariamente o smartphone para estabelecer e manter contactos e as redes sociais têm como principal função o entretenimento. A pertinência e o principal contributo deste estudo passam, entre outros, por permitir a caracterização de hábitos e práticas de consumo de media, bem como possibilitar a identificação de estratégias específicas para uma geração que tem claramente diferentes hábitos de consumo de informação.This article presents partial results of the project "Media Literacy in Higher Education: an exploratory study with Social Communication students", whose main objective is to assess the degree of literacy of students in this area of training over the three years of their academic career in the Social Communication course, taught at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. To achieve the objectives, a descriptive and exploratory study was developed and an online questionnaire was used for data collection. Specifically in this article, we analyze the results related to the first section of the questionnaire and related to student’s media consumption and practices. The results obtained allow us to conclude that students essentially use social media and television to keep themselves informed about what happens in the country and in the world, with the printed newspaper being the least used medium. In terms of the use of devices and technologies, most students consider that the main functions of the internet are to inform and entertain, they mostly use the smartphone to establish and maintain contacts, and the main function of social networks is entertainment. The relevance and main contribution of this study is, among others, to allow the characterization of habits and practices of media consumption, as well as to enable the identification of specific strategies for a generation that clearly has different habits of information consumption.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Challenges of Disinformation: Perceptions of Social Communication graduates in the face of the threat of fake news

The challenges of misinformation remain at the top of current concerns, both in terms of the need to understand the phenomenon and in terms of the challenges that fake news represents for the generations more connected to digital media. As part of the project "Media Literacy in Higher Education: an exploratory study with Social Communication students", this article seeks to understand how senior students of a Media Studies course position themselves in the face of the disinformation scenario. The results of the focus group show that these young people have a clear capacity to understand the phenomenon of disinformation, know how to identify its origins, and even how to fight it. Still, the fact that we are talking about a generation whose digital presence is both a characteristic and a representation of changes in their information consumption habits has implications for the reading of the fake news phenomenon. The students' distancing from the media and the polysemy of the term fake news seems to be indicators of some difficulties in the clear distinction between the intentional creation and sharing of false information on social networks and the unintentional diffusion of error by the media outlets. Thus, the polysemy of the term fake news is, from the outset, one of the challenges that urgently needs to be included in media literacy programs, along with strengthening the role, function, and social space that the media occupy in the information sector.Os desafios da desinformação continuam no topo das preocupações atuais, quer face à necessidade de compreensão do fenómeno, quer no que diz respeito aos desafios que as fake news representam para as gerações mais ligadas ao digital. No âmbito do projeto Literacia Mediática no Ensino Superior: um estudo exploratório com alunos de Comunicação Social", procuramos, neste artigo, compreender de que forma é que alunos finalistas de um curso de Comunicação Social se posicionam perante o cenário da desinformação. Os resultados do grupo de foco realizado mostram, desde logo, que estes jovens detêm uma clara capacidade de compreensão do fenómeno da desinformação, sabem identificar as suas origens e até como o combater. Ainda assim, o facto de falarmos de uma geração cuja presença digital é simultaneamente uma caraterística e uma representação de mudanças nos seus hábitos de consumo de informação, tem implicações na leitura do fenómeno das fake news. O distanciamento dos estudantes em relação aos meios de comunicação social e a polissemia do termo fake news parecem ser indicadores de algumas dificuldades na clara distinção entre a criação e partilha de informação falsa de forma intencional nas redes sociais e a difusão do erro não intencional por parte dos meios de comunicação social. Assim, a polissemia do termo fake news é, desde logo, um dos desafios que urge incluir nos programas de literacia mediática, a par com o reforço do papel, função e espaço social que ocupam os meios de comunicação social no setor da informação.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Concurso de curtas-metragens enquanto laboratório de criatividade narrativa - Relato da experiência académica na ESEV

Narrative art is as old as human kind and assumes itself as a fundamental element of everyday life. In this sense, since a narrative is a story that presents a diegetic universe composed of real or imaginary events, lived by fictional or true beings in a given time and space, this paper’s objective is to establish and present some thought about the video competition held by the School of Education from Viseu as a laboratory for narrative creativity. This initiative, which has already held twelve editions, integrates itself within the sphere of the institution's cultural activities and it is an encouragement space for short cinematographic creations. In parallel, it aims to stimulate the talent, the creativity and the quality of the work submitted. In this contest, the students are invited, individually or in small groups, to create a short film with a maximum duration of 10 minutes, in Portuguese or in English and authors are free to propose the theme. The genres accepted in the competition are fiction, documentary and animation. The analysis of this experience allows us to list several positive aspects, such as the added value of the academic competition of short films as a mean to motivate and encourage Portuguese cinematographic production within an academic context, as well as to allow the development of skills in filming, editing and post-production by students from different study cycles.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Audiovisual production MOOCS: analysis of organizational, content, and methodological criteria

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented changes and challenges to the ways of learning, teaching, and communicating within educational institutions. Prophylactic isolation measures, adopted globally, have discontinued face-to-face teaching and precipitated distance learning. This reality highlighted the importance of online courses as creative initiatives to overcome space and time constraints in a limited pedagogical context. It was in this scope that the Project "Exploration of online methodologies in the development of competencies in the audiovisual area" emerged, proposing the creation of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in the audiovisual area (from the idea to the final product) and the development of the online platform LOOP for the implementation and availability of this and other courses held afterward. The project involves three Portuguese higher education institutions and one Spanish one, motivated to develop innovative proposals, both in research and education. Moreover, this network presents a diversity of training in degree courses, master's, and technological specialization programs, which allows us a privileged contact with the students and helps us establish priorities and needs. This paper focuses on the survey and analysis, at the national and international level, of MOOCs dedicated to the themes of audiovisual production to expose parameters of both organizational and content scope. The methodological approach will be divided into two phases: a) identification of the criteria for analyzing courses through the literature review; b) and selection of the courses to be analyzed. This selection will be conducted through a database search, identifying the keywords in Portuguese, English, and Spanish: audiovisual online course; audiovisual free course; filmmaking course; scriptwriting course; video editing course; and other derivations. It is hoped to present a set of guidelines for developing the course related to the organization and the content.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Online course "from idea to final product": organizational, content, and methodological aspects

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented changes and challenges to the ways of learning, teaching, and communicating within educational institutions. Prophylactic isolation measures, adopted globally, have discontinued face-to-face teaching and precipitated distance learning. This reality highlighted the importance of online courses as creative initiatives to overcome space and time constraints in a limited pedagogical context. It was in this scope that the Project "Exploration of online methodologies in the development of competencies in the audiovisual area" emerged, proposing the creation of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in the audiovisual area (from the idea to the final product) and the development of the online platform LOOP for the implementation and availability of this and other courses held afterward. The project involves three Portuguese higher education institutions and one Spanish one, motivated to develop innovative proposals, both in research and education. Moreover, this network presents a diversity of training in degree courses, master's, and technological specialization programs, which allows us privileged contact with the students and helps us establish priorities and needs. This paper focuses on the survey and analysis, at the national and international level, of MOOCs dedicated to the themes of audiovisual production to expose parameters of both organizational and content scope. The methodological approach will be divided into two phases: a) identification of the criteria for analyzing courses through the literature review; b) and selection of the courses to be analyzed. This selection will be conducted through a database search, identifying the keywords in Portuguese, English, and Spanish: audiovisual online course; audiovisual free course; filmmaking course; scriptwriting course; video editing course; and other derivations. It is hoped to present a set of guidelines for developing the course related to the organization and the content.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio