VIRTUAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

• Link, name, screenshot the Virtual Learning Community

We have chosen New Methodologies in Education because they are important in order to develop decision-making skills, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking ability. The new ways of teaching make students more productive and encourage them to collaborate.

• What Social Network have you chosen (general information and justification of the social network).

Facebook is a website that allows users, who sign-up for free profiles, to connect with friends, work colleagues, or people they don’t know, online. It allows users to share pictures, music, videos, and articles, as well as their own thoughts and opinions with however many people they like.

Facebook allows to create variated content and interact with a high number of people. You can create profiles, pages, and groups, where people can collaborate in a public or private way, talk about different topics, ad files or stats, etc. In education, Facebook facilitates interactions between students who have a vision of learning education as an individual job. Teachers can complete studies and discussions on social networks. In a way, they provide a direct relationship between teachers and students outside the usual timetable.

• Personal opinion: what do you think in general about the use of virtual learning communities and why do you think that?

Virtual Learning Communities can be created through tools such as social networks, forums, or any platform that allows for collaboration between different members of the community. The goal of the community should be to build a collective knowledge that can be appropriated by all through the exchange of experiences, ideas, and opinions. The importance of dialogue, of a two-way nature, and the participation and collaboration of all around the same goal, must be primordial. 

One of the advantages of virtual space over face-to-face is that it favors oral, written, or audio-visual communication and, therefore, all participants have the opportunity to present their ideas through different channels, in addition to having more time to process the information and organize the content of their messages. Another advantage is that the result of the work is available for consultation at any time later. But surely the key to the success of Learning Communities is a sense of belonging, that each individual perceives his or her importance within the group, that his or her views count and influence agreed decisions, and that all participants have their learning needs met.