Abstract:

In asynchronous communication, as in social networks or virtual communities, there are several elements that interfere with the learning process of the participants. However, the presence of education appears as an essential element so that learning can take place.Based on this principle a study will be presented which analyses the presence of teaching taking into account a model adapted from Anderson et al., (2001). According to this model, the presence of teaching is identified and analyzed based on three categories: Design and Organization, Facilitating Speech and Direct Instruction, with their respective indicators. The documentary corpus will be a social networking forum Proedi, titled Technology x Methodology, which was applied to a group of prospective teachers who were among a group of master's degree in Education from the University of Minho (Philosophy and Geography/History). The participation in the Forum was one of the teaching strategies used by the teacher in the field of Educational technology that was lectured in the second half of 2012.
In this forum we had the participation of 26 students and a total of 92 contributions. As a result we can say that in the first category, “Design and Organization”, there was found no evidence, which can be explained by the fact that Proedi already existed and has not been designed specifically for this group. In the category of "Facilitating Discourse”, we had a total of 36 evidence, and with greater emphasis on the indicator "encourage other participants, promote discussion", which to us constitutes a triggering element to the construction of knowledge, since the members are constantly encouraged to seek solutions to problems or questioned by the e-moderator and also by participating members
And finally, in the phase called "Direct Instruction", it was possible to identify 94 evidences. One of the indicators in this category that deserves attention is "Confirm understanding through assessment and explanatory feedback", with 30 evidence, thus demonstrating that most students had an understanding of the subjects taught there, since the discussion generated contributed to individual and collective learning (Holmes et al., 2001). Another fact to consider is that of the 30 verified evidence, only 13 were from the e-moderator, which reinforces what is already referred in the literature concerning the shared leadership.
However, the data also point out that a social networking presence can perfectly happen not necessarily and only by effective intervention of the e-moderator, but mainly by engagement and willingness to learn. We consider that the presence of teaching can be the result of the continuous desire to learn on the part of students that feel motivated to discuss certain themes and add new knowledge about the subject under discussion. In what concerns the e-moderator, this component can only be observed by the constant monitoring on the participation of students sending in feedbacks, so to keep the group motivated.

Keywords:

Feedback, teaching, participation, knowledge, e-moderator.