Abstract:

The current Covid-19 situation has led to the immediate transformation of the education from a face-to-face environment to an online environment. Consequently, the students currently arriving to the university classrooms have had diverse learning and communication experiences with different types of digital technology on a permanent and daily basis and are familiarized with the use of Information and Communication Technologies. (ICT).

The current situation of the superior education shows the necessity of renewing the teaching and learning processes and incorporating the ICTs to the learning processes in an effective way.

Otherwise, what has been called ‘Collaborative Learning’ has acquired more relevance in teaching in the last years. Learning is formed through interaction not just between the teacher and the student, but among students themselves using both face-to-face and virtual modalities to exchange, discuss and create knowledge.

The primary aim of this work has been to analyze the use of virtual forums in the university teaching-learning process, as a support element of the face-to-face classes, emphasizing the collaborative activities. In this way, the forum functions as a means for the students to expose their questions and for their own classmates to answer them. The forum is a tool offered by the virtual platform e-gela, which is offered by the University of the Basque Country.

The responsibility of the teacher is very important, as he is not only a mediator in the learning process promoting knowledge, but he also should supervise and help the group when it is not able to progress, therefore boosting the group success.

Keywords:

Virtual forums, interaction, e-learning tools, collaborative learning, motivated learning.