THE POTENCIAL OF REAL-TIME EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

This article results from our participation in the Up2U European Project (Up to University) where it will soon start a sub-task related to some of the real-time activities with potential to improve the teaching and learning process, reducing time, saving money and, above all, involving and motivating people in the educational process even remotely.
In recent years, we have witnessed a revolution in the digital world and we have seen the emergence of extremely powerful devices that when placed in the hands of users allow them to perform numerous activities in real time.
Basically, two main technological key aspects improved this revolution: the emergence of powerful codecs that significantly reduce file size and a large increase in internet speed provided by Internet Solution Providers (ISPs).
We have now possibilities to perform real time activities with pedagogical purposes. We believe that those activities will provide an even more distributed and global learning.
At the same time participants will also be able to participate in real time, interact with others or with tools on environments and attend / participate on events related to their training.
To produce this paper, we will use a methodology with two different phases.
On the first phase we intend to identify and explore some tools based on a set of pre-identified pedagogical processes but related with educational activities that can be carried out in real time (ex. a video conference, an on-line quiz or a broadcast of a thematic workshop with a live chat).
On the second phase a set of tests is planned for each selected tool and some results will be presented.
One of our planed experiences will also focus some different pedagogical process such as a visit to a museum. This means that we will also look at emerging technologies such as virtual or augmented reality but from “real-time” activity perspective.
At end, we will explore some real-time assessment processes (as Google Forms, or Kahoot) as an innovative process with the potential to provide information related with students learning paths. We will explore how teachers can use this to adapt the way they teach on real time.
Basically, we will focus tools that allow teachers and students to interact and learn from real-time activities.
We believe that this work package in the European project Up2U has the potential to contribute to an innovation process that will provide the use of solutions and technologies and real-time interactions inside and outside the classrooms. The whole study will be based on formal and informal education processes and a reflection about real time activities related and suitable for both will be presented.