Ana Paula Varela P. Afonso

Open University · Department of Education and Distance Learning (DEED)

The Innovative Digital Education and Skills (IDEAS) Project is an ERASMUS+ project involving four European countries (United Kingdom, Malta, Denmark, and Portugal), aiming to improve teacher digital skills and competences through a 30- hour microlearning teacher training course. The output consists of bite-sized modules using adaptive learning mode...

The development of didactic material in Distance Education has been discussed in an incipient way in academic circles, through research focused on design models, and ways of using new technologies - videos, blogs, and social networks among others - with greater emphasis on public universities, thus neglecting the corporate universities. This paper...

Bearing in mind that the world is increasingly dominated by technology, learning in the online context is gradually accompanying its development regarding the use of learning as a primary factor for distance learning. This paper presents the study conducted to analyze the models and practices of the use of elearning whose affirmation in the educati...

A new reality of teaching and learning through technology is continually on the rise creating the need for governments, organizations, teachers, students, and families to adapt. Students are realizing the need to become more autonomous, parents are having to become more present, and teachers are assuming new roles in virtual education. Although thi...

Portugal has been developing policy initiatives aimed at raising the levels of education and professional qualifications of the adult population. Among the most innovative practices resulting from these proposals, a system of recognition, validation, and certification of competences was implemented, based on centers and teams prepared for the devel...

This investigation relates to the professional development of in-service teachers on online teaching in K-12/P-12 schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main questions concerned the autonomy and support from/in schools, alternatives found and implemented. A model was developed and applied in different institutions. This article will focus on ana...

The paper presents the e-facilitator concept and explores the perspective of some professionals in the field (stakeholders) on this role and its competencies. Facilitation in virtual learning environments is a growing challenge when more and more learners find their way to online learning platforms and many universities adapt their courses to digit...

INTRODUÇÃO A pandemia por COVID-19 afigurou-se como um desafio hercúleo para a sociedade mundial em todos os setores de atividade, nomeadamente no contexto da educação (UNESCO, 2020). A Organização Mundial da Saúde, em janeiro de 2020, declara a situação como sendo uma Emergência de Saúde Pública de âmbito Internacional e, em 11 de março 2020, é cl...

Abstract The 2020 pandemic, resulting from SARS-CoV 2, imposed the implementation of solutions responding to the needs emerged from confinement. In Portugal, within the scope of the proclaimed “state of emergency”, measures were taken such as the decree of confinement, teleworking, and the closure of educational institutions. These measures also ha...

We are currently interested in the study of core concepts: playfulness, imagination, creativity. In here we are looking at existing theoretical perspectives on these concepts, trying to understand the relationships between them, to identify unanswered questions. While trying to put into evidence the relationships between these concepts for the stud...

Este volume apresenta os artigos apresentados na “Videojogos2013 – Conferência de Ciências e Artes dos Videojogos”, que decorreu na Universidade de Coimbra, a 26 e 27 de Setembro de 2013, sob o tema “Arte em Jogo”, organizada pela Universidade de Coimbra em cooperação com a Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências dos Videojogos. As conferências da Socieda...

Numa abordagem de aplicação prospectiva, esta dissertação pretende encontrar respostas para a questão de “como se geram e gerem comunidades virtuais de aprendizagem?”. Fundamentada no corpo teórico existente no âmbito dos paradigmas pós-modernos (os construtivismos e seus derivados) e contextual (comunidades) da aprendizagem, a nossa pesquisa tradu...

This chapter addresses the use of communities as a context-creating approach for the management of learning in virtual settings. It stresses the lack of consensus around the concept of community, its recent deployment in the educational domain, and the extent to which the educational use of virtual settings has neglected the construction of appropr...

Managing Learning In Virtual Settings: The Role Of Context discusses the basis for the development and management of learning contexts, with contributions from many diverse domains. It stresses the dimension of context in a world dominated by a focus on the dimension of content while explaining the development of balanced, organic and successful le...

This chapter presents a philosophical framework to help understand the essence of learning contexts. It starts with a brief historical account of the emergence and evolution of the problems of context in learning, and of their increased relevance as learning activities migrate to the online world. It then presents a simple model for a learning even...

This chapter presents findings from research into the nature of successful, onlinetertiary teaching and learning. The project is part of a larger study aimed at estab-lishing guidelines for the ongoing design and development of online courses withinthe authors’institution. The research findings, from interviews with tertiary onlineteachers, identif...

The complexity of our world is calling for models of education that break away from the traditional “delivery of information” paradigm towards “knowledge creation” approaches that value activity, interaction, self-learning, communication, responsibility and team work. We describe a real case where Learning Contracts and Portfolios were combined wit...

1. INTRODUÇÃO O presente relatório de avaliação do programa “Acompanhamento da Utilização Educativa da Internet nas Escolas Públicas do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico” toma como referência os relatórios finais de actividades entregues em Setembro de 2003 pelas Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES) que coordenaram a intervenção nas escolas. Considera tam...

This project addresses the design of a framework for the development of learning contexts through virtual learning communities, based on the development of learning activities. It endeavours to establish a framework to rethink the management of learning and knowledge as processes of social participation within virtual contexts of collective learnin...

This paper argues that, although the mainstream vision on learning and education is still strongly based on the mechanistic models of the Industrial Society, we are at the dawn of the Knowledge Society, where the old premises are vanishing and completely different paradigms apply. We start by briefly analyzing the mechanistic heritage of education...

This paper argues that the development of web-based (WB) learning environments is impaired by a vision of education that emphasizes content and disregards context. Though inherited from the outdated mechanistic models of the Industrial Society, this vision still dominates most of the efforts to improve learning and education, at an era where comple...

This chapter presents a philosophical framework to help understand the essence of learning contexts. It starts with a brief historical account of the emergence and evolution of the problems of context in learning, and of their increased relevance as learning activities migrate to the online world. It then presents a simple model for a learning even...