Research

Publication (Phd Thesis)

Técnicas y metodologías para el aprendizaje cooperativo y ubicuo en la construcción de comunidades virtuales mediante MOOC

Gene, Oriol Borras
Abstract:
MOOC (massive online open courses) have broken out into online education and become a strategic element of a number of prestigious universities. There are different options within this type of training, the most widespread being xMOOC, which has a behavioural approach, and cMOOC, the approach of which is more connectivist. In both cases, they are closely linked to lifelong learning based on peer learning. The first type is based on non-formal learning, while the second type is characterised by more informal learning. This doctoral thesis introduces new methods for generating online mass learning processes through a proposed model based on collaborative learning. The model is based on a virtual learning community that was derived from a MOOC. This community consists of MOOC students who voluntarily come together and share knowledge, promote initiatives, formulate questions and interact with each other. The result is a virtual community that is sustainable over time and independent of teaching within the MOOC. It is therefore based on informal learning, the result of collaboration among its members. The proposed model, called gcMOOC, is based on three pillars: MOOC, virtual learning communities and gamification. In order for a sustainable and independent community to form a MOOC it is necessary to motivate and engage the student. For this, it is proposed, as the novelty of this thesis, the use of gamification approach, that is, the use of techniques and elements proper to the design of games, be applied to massive online education. In this way new behaviours can be developed that lead to a continuous use of the community. The result is the generation and delivery of open educational resources that can be useful to members of the community and reusable for future editions of the MOOC. There is a scientific gap in the evaluation and study of MOOC learning communities, especially in the analysis of these after the end of the teaching period. In this research an exhaustive study of the learning community during different periods of its life, along different editions of a MOOC, was conducted from the analysis of the hashtags used by its members. The results show the types of learning that were detected in the model that facilitates the formation of a functional community that generates resources. One of the characteristics of such communities is their autonomy from the MOOC using social networking platforms that promote sustainability and effectiveness of the training process beyond the MOOC. In conclusion, the model proposed in this thesis makes use of methods of analysis that enable one to determine the perceptions of the participants and to measure their participation, allowing one to generate a community that lasts in time beyond teaching in the MOOC, in which educational resources are generated in the open, without any guidance or dynamisation of a teaching team, through the development of attitudes to informal learning within the community.
Research areas:
Year:
2017
Type of Publication:
Phd Thesis
Type of Publication:
PhD Thesis