Tecnologias digitais e educação superior : elementos estruturantes para a constituição de ecologias de aprendizagem

Abstract

This research arose from the development of the emerging Digital Culture in connection with the growing use of Digital Technologies in the educational sphere, which can provide new teaching-learning possibilities, allowing subjects to explore knowledge in a more autonomous, flexible, collaborative, interactive and personalized way, thus constituting “ecological” spaces as proper for learning. This doctoral research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee under the number CAAE 52423321.1.0000.5690, respecting all the ethical, methodological and scientific aspects to which it was proposed. It also investigates the problem of how Learning Ecologies are constituted in Higher Education in Mato Grosso. The thesis is that, with the more intense use of Digital Technologies, new and other learning environments are (re)created and appropriated by the subjects participating in the training process, constituting the elements that structure the Learning Ecologies. In this research, Learning Ecologies are configured from an integrative perspective with catalyzing elements for networked and collective learning, in different spaces and times, giving rise to both formal and informal learning, through networked activities, resources, relationships and interactions. In other words, they are concerned with 'transits' between the virtual and what is not in it. In this way, EE becomes an important framework for analysing the forms and dynamics in which different subjects collectively, organize themselves to learn. The general objective was to understand and analyze the elements that constitute Learning Ecologies in the context of Higher Education in Mato Grosso. The focus of this research is Higher Education, with the courses, disciplines and participants linked to the offerings during Emergency Remote Education. In this research, the approach is qualitative, inspired by the Virtual Ethnography methodology, which enables the observation of online and offline social interactions between subjects, understanding the possibilities of the internet and the implications of its use in everyday life. The theoretical framework was built on fundamental concepts for this study, involving discussions in the scientific and academic fields, which address related themes within the domain under investigation. Data analysis was based on the three structuring pillars of Learning Ecologies: social interaction and pedagogical mediation; the circulation of materials and the constitution of knowledge; and Learning Ecologies: (re)constructed lessons. As a result, this research offers a substratum of possibilities for integrating Digital Technologies into teaching and learning processes, indicating structuring elements that constitute Learning Ecologies and that promote more dynamic, collaborative, communicative and interactive Higher Education. Finally, it presents recommendations that can be considered and implemented by all participants, institutions, course coordinators, teachers and students, expanding the potential of education in Digital Culture.