Review of UNAD Virtual Environment
UNAD
is an open distance university in Colombia, this university is one of
the oldest in virtual education in the country. The university has
been working at least for 20 years and is one of the pioneers in
this kind of education
the distance
education.
ACCeSIT
is the platform which makes possible all the educational procces at
UNAD, this platform is characterized by offering a wide variety of
resources to the students from UNAD in all the different
profesional carrers
UNAD
as other universities offers a wide variety of professional progrmas
like B.A in English, Enviromental Engineer, Indusrial engineer,
food engineers as well as different Phd, masters, and different
courses in French and English.
The
platform offers a first Menu in which the students has open acces
to a variety of benefits, like Virtual Courses, common questions,
E-library, users attention, academic counselor, normativities, ICFES
pro, academic control, University wellness and news, in all the
mentioned spaces the students can have acces to all the information
related to the course as participants as well as all the tools that
he or she may need to acomplish the course.
The
most common space used by the students is “My virtual courses”
in this space the learners have open acces to all the mandatory
subjects and courses.
Once
the link My virtual courses is opended it will be dropped down all
the subjects or courses in which the student is registered. In the
below image it is posible to observe the dropped down courses like
Enlish 1 and English 2, once the student click on any course it will
dropped down the content of the course as follows.
Starting
environment
In
this space the student has the opportunity to know all the
information about the course like the presentation of the course, the
agenda of the course, the vieo tutorial of how to navigate in the
course as well as the opportunity to know all the general agreements
of the course, on the other hand the second part of this course has
as objetive to present the general forums, to share information
with the tutor of the course, the leader of the course and partners
of the course
Knowledge environment
The
intent of this environment is to present to the student the contents
and resources necessary for the understanding and the development of
the course. Therefore, in this environment the syllabus of the course
is presented, the documentary sources as well as a bibliography and
different sources exposed as video documents that will establish a
solid basis for the student and thus develop the course.
Collaborative
learning
The
intent of this environment is to establish a channel of academic
interaction and collective work with the different participants of
the fórum, where academic contributions provide a constructive
learning space. On the other hand, this environment allows the
interaction of the tutor with the students through constant
accompaniment through synchronous meetings via web conference,
synchronous advice via Skype, which gives the student the possibility
of receiving effective fedback and clarity regarding the development
of the activities proposed in the course.
Practice
Learning
This
environment is divided into two parts and within its intentions are
to guide the student in the development of activities, through well
structured guides where the step by step is indicated in each of the
activities to be developed during the established times. In this
environment it is providing supporting material to the student like
wikis. Workshops, simulators among others.
Monitoring
and evaluation environment
In
this environment, it is divided into four spaces with the purpose of
demonstrating the student's activities and the advances in his / her
training process. Finally, this environment also gives the student
the chance to upload the different activities to be evaluated at
different times of the course.
Student
Management Environment
The
objective of this environment is to present the student with detailed
and organized information on academic or administrative cases to
address the student's concerns
What
you can do with the mentioned environments
Interaction
with the tutor-student
Initial
information environment, collaborative learning in this space the
tutor and the student sustain a synchronous and asynchronous
communication through the use of emails, news, forums, synchronous
meetings via conference web, synchronous advice via Skype.
Peer
interaction
The
initial information environment and the collaborative learning
environment allow the student to receive feedback through the forums
of the activities where contributions are made as if it were a work
in
Teacher
Accompaniment:
Initial
information environment, collaborative learning environment,
monitoring environment and learning evaluation in these three spaces,
communication channels are established that allow support, advice and
support to the student through support elements such as emails,
learning guides, feedback in the forums, tutorials, announcements,
response to activities and evaluation of all processes.
Interaction
with student - content:
Within
the knowledge environment and the practical environment the student
has the possibility to explore the work guide and make use of the
bibliographic resources suggested by the tutor to develop the
activities.
Relationship competences - contents - evaluation:
Knowledge
environment and monitoring and evaluation environment are the spaces
that allow the development of everything related to the
methodological and the activities proposed by the tutor for the good
development of the course. In addition, the second monitoring and
evaluation environment is where learning is evaluated and results in
activities with its evaluation rubric.
Knowledge
environment, practical environment, student management environment,
these spaces provide support resources to the student such as videos,
digital bibliographies, explanations, tutorials.
Technical
dimensión of the platform
It
has easy acces to the contents, the platform tend to confused at
some point the students because there are too much environments, the
page offers a wide variety of links contents to navigate, the page
also offers different multimedia resources that allow the student
to practice all of the activities appropiately, inside the
multimedia resources in the practical fórum there is not possible
to print some activities, but the page offers external links that
allow the students to find material to study.. On the other hand,
the page face problems with some broswer like chrome the recommended
broswer is Mozzilla Firefox the web page Works appropiately and is
updated each 6 months regularly.
The
web page offers in the starting environment of the course is a
general video is one is introductory and is focus on the different
parts of the page, additionally to this the virtual environmet
includes the target of the students and what is he or she able to do
when the course ends, the web page has been designed follow all the
standars fo the common european framework. In is evident that is
designed bearing in mind the age of the studets and level. It can be
observed in the organization of the content, also with the activities
ropoused in all the four habilities listeing, speaking and gramar.
The web page that was created bearing in mind the language comptence
of the student. The course has forums in which the students have the
oportunity to use the language in context with peers, acording to
their level.
The course proposes different activities in which the language is used in context and talk about culture, food and technology depending of the topic, also it has a rubric in which is described the level, objectives, targets, as well as the step by step of the activity which include a serie of activities to be performed in the fórum, in the environment of practice and all the different environments of the platforms the student have open access to links and suggested programs with regard to the evaluation of the students they are recieve their ggrades in different ways through the forums, comments of peers, Skype and youtube.
The platform is characterized by it´s interactivity, as well as being free of dead links and bugs, the platform is stable also well designed in the kind of contents, it presents for the students one of the main advantages, of the platform is that allow the students to share with other students from different departments and countries through the use of different internal or external tools of the page.
The
platform offers all the information related to the managers as well
as contact of the adminitrators,it includes differet links to keep in
contact with all the people included in this environment also a FAQ.
The platform is not free. The person must be a student or pay, although the cost of the course is not expensive in comparison with
other universities.
Total points: 130
Conclusions
In
our personal point of view the platform has few disadvantages, is not
expensive and work with all the abilities in English. Additionally it
is a safe pace to navigate and find others to share knowledge. Thus, we recommend this environment as a language learning/teaching resource.
Bibliography
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J. (2006). Bases pedagógicas del e-learning. Madrid, España:
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M. (2015). Mediación Didáctica y Entornos Virtuales: La
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