Abstract:

Hybrid forms of distance and face-to-face education have been growing and valued by public policies in Brazil. Interaction between people through technologies of Computer-mediated Communication makes them more than tools, but new spaces of conversation (Recuero 2012). These online environments can be seen as objects of Design as well as communication and information systems (Bomfim 1999), for they are designed in order to allow individuals to interact with others. These interactions can be seen as more convivial or more manipulative (Illich 1985), bringing forth different types of learning. In the present article, we study a Project discipline in the Design course at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), complemented by the use of a social networking site, proposed by students and incorporated by teachers, and a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) proposed by a teacher and offered by the Central Coordination of Distance Education of the university. We accompanied the use of the Facebook group and analyzed, through structured interviews, the teachers' views about the subjects' places and the relations established between students and teachers mediated by the online environments. We also analyzed how the relations established moved towards the potential of questioning and "announcement of new paths", or the tendency to "maintain" manipulative practices (Illich 1985; Bomfim 1999). Certain practices, such as free interaction in the Facebook group, served more to the "formulation of perplexities" (Illich 1985) and the building of a dialogue with the "other", skills necessary to the development of projects at PUC-Rio. While others, such as the production of text and delivery within the deadlines, through the VLE, contributed to the development of skills such as conformation of written language to formal standards and learning how to write within the "report" genre. Facebook strengthened interactions but made information management difficult. However, the benefits were greater than the losses, as a complement to the face-to-face teaching of Project. Moodle enabled the availability of information and the control of deliveries, making it difficult to establish relationships, but contributing to the teaching of textual production. By appropriating these environments, through mutual interaction, teachers and students attributed characteristics of spaces of coexistence and learning to the Facebook group, in which students were autonomous agents. At the same time, they maintained some characteristics of spaces of traditional practices, in which students assumed reactive positions, minimizing the establishment of relationships, especially inside Moodle. By designing and configuring online environments and their interfaces, designers provide tools that enhance or hinder certain types of human actions, but do not determine them, since the appropriation by the subjects generates new uses. Even in a formal institutional context, it is possible to develop learning actions that involve more convivial relations, joining the formal with the non-formal (Gadotti 2005). The students' initiative to learn in networks, the openness of teachers, the dialogue with designers and the flexibility or support of the institution contribute to this integration, understanding that these actions are fruitful in the cognitive and affective development of the students, in line with the objectives of their professional qualification.

Keywords:

Virtual learning environments, teachers, hybrid learning, social networking sites.