Abstract:

The current work points out the importance of the open forum as a special tool for enhancing the relationship between tutor and students within a virtual classroom on a distance learning basis. The research is primarily qualitative and emphasizes various aspects of postings, access rates and other parameters derived from the open forum set up for two virtual classrooms involving 199 students that attended a specific subject in Pedagogy at a private university located in Santos municipality, Sao Paulo State, Brazil.
Classrooms were given #1 and #2 identification tags. There were 101 students in classroom #1, and 98 in classroom #2, with 11 males against 90 females and 13 males against 85 females, respectively (average ratio: 88% female, 12% male).
Three main questions were addressed: i) How can the free forum be considered as an instrument of learning diversification within a virtual learning environment (VLE)?; ii) How are the free forum access rates in comparison with the rates of disciplinary forums and other related mandatory activities?; and, iii) Is there any qualitative gain for tutor-student interactions within a VLE by considering reports and experiences presented throughout the free forum postings and discussions?
Two classrooms worked on with the Moodle-platform system were studied during the second semester of 2008. Fifteen significant postings were picked from each of the classrooms, reported and discussed accordingly, after 208 postings from classroom #1 and 212 postings from classroom #2 were analyzed and categorized according to the following category groups: i) Confidence gain when accessing the Moodle platform after discussions and interactivity carried out with the open forum; ii) Improvement of the tutor-student relationship; iii) Self-esteem and enhancement of the educational process as a whole; iv) Reliability on the tutor's work held within the VLE; v) Enhancement of the student-student and tutor-student interactivity; and, vi) Criticism to the educational process and/or teaching/learning approaches.
Results suggest that students and tutors take the open forum into deep consideration. Interactivity and reliability to develop several activities of the distance learning platform seem to be enhanced with the dialog carried out during open forums. The author suggests that other tutors at the same university open similar forums in their virtual classrooms to increment a deeper dialog between tutor and students. Thus, higher rates of interactivity and, consequently, qualitative gain might be possible in interpersonal relationships present in teaching-learning situations within a virtual environment.

Keywords:

free forum, interpersonal relationships, tutor-student interactivity.