Manuel Joao COSTA, University of Minho, PT
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted global education, requiring educational institutions to rethink their role and ways of acting online. The IDEA Center (Innovation and Development of Teaching and Learning) at the University of Minho (Braga – Portugal) works mainly in teacher training and focused on face-to-face activities (training, events and projects), maintaining a website and blog. This work presents some of the impacts in the dynamics of the team’s work and in the community relationship. At the first cases in Portugal, the IDEA team started using existed tools (website, blog and email), restricting dissemination and community interaction. With the indications for confinement, middle of March, the first action to increase diffusion was Facebook and Twitter creation. Using social networks made it possible to expand dissemination, providing tools for dialogue and quick sharing. In ten days (13-23 / April), Facebook received 500 followers (710 on 03/17) and, as new followers joined them, specific demands came, arising from official decision for online study. Shortly, after the Facebook and Twitter creation, IDEAdigital was created, constituting a space on the IDEA website for the dissemination of materials to assist in online teaching. IDEAdigital consist of short texts (1 – 2 pages), addressing topics that could be used directly by teachers and / or students, from assessment, work management, educational tools, etc, and were launched on the website and simultaneously disseminated on social networks, email and blog. From some contributions, the team’s contribution gradually increased, going beyond individual inserts, to collaboration on shared documents, indicating a process of digital co-creation, which ends up breaking the limits of the classic authorial process. The afflictions of teachers and students increased and the team felt the need to create an informal and open space for dialogue (Sharing IDEAs), without much structure, for issues of online education. The Sharing IDEAs took place in weekly live sessions (Zoom), with predefined themes (guiding questions were sent to subscribers). After a brief explanation, the participants (60 to 140) were divided into breakout rooms, with a moderator in each, and participants could share their ideas, challenges, anxieties, without any kind of charge or discrimination. After sessions, the moderators wrote summaries of the ideas and challenges, which constituted an IDEAdigital. People’s interest in having a space to talk about what they were experiencing stood out. A month after, the Flipped webinar was created, in which the subscribers were invited to watch a video about the some tool, prior to a short and informal presentation of it in the educational context. It is noteworthy that organizing digital productions takes time and organization and Google Drive was chosen to manage production and work, in addition to maintaining a weekly online meeting. A gradual increase in online collaborative work was perceived, as the team experimented the digital tools in the context of digital work, bringing evidence of the enculturation and incorporation of digital skills for education.
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