This document analyzes how teachers in a collaborative group called GETED learn from each other in a virtual environment on Moodle. It finds that teachers share resources, reflections on readings, and experiences to gain new knowledge and perspectives. They discuss themes, provide feedback, and critically analyze knowledge together. This collaborative learning helps teachers innovate, be more reflective in their practice, and appropriate new technologies critically.

1. TEACHER’S LONGLIFE TRAINING
IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS:
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Lopes, Mª Cristina
cristina@ucdb.br (UCDB)
Silva, Adelina
____________

2. OBJECTIVE
Identify how teachers, who participate
in GETED, act and learn in a
collaborative way
GETED – Group of studies and researches in
educational technology and distance
education

3. METHODOLOGY
• The collected data registered the changes
occurred in a group of studies and
research (GETED) in a private university
at Brazil.
• These changes were observed at a virtual
environment - MOODLE - at the discuss
forum artifact.

4. LONGLIFE TRAINING
Pimenta (1999) points out that teacher
development should mobilize theoretical
knowledge and develop the capacity of
investigating one’s own activity. To mobilize,
according to the author, means something
beyond “moving”. Therefore, the teachers’
ongoing education should be a continuous
process focused on practical, theoretical and
pedagogical knowledge

5. TEACHERS´DEVELOPMENT
Perrenoud (1999) synthesizes in a
perspicacious way that at actual context is
needed to reinforce teachers’
development for a reflexive practice,
promote innovation and cooperation,
prepare professionals who are reflexive
and dynamic, who know how to work in
groups, how to search and select
information, how to take decisions and
develop autonomy in relation to their own
learning process.

6. CRITICAL DOMAINS OF THE
TECHNOLOGICAL LANGUAGE
According to Sampaio & Leite (1999),
teacher needs to dominate the
technological language and its
technological literacy, but not just the
mechanical use of the resources, but also
the critical domain of the technological
language.

7. TEACHERS´CONCEPTIONS - LONGLIFE
TRAINING
Participant (A)[1] Here, we teach and learn.
Several thematics discussed at the meetings are
opportunities to learn new things and not to be
“restricted” to our own object of research.
[1] The excerpts were transcribed without any
alteration, with fictitious identifications to
maintain the anonymity of the participants.

8. TEACHERS´CONCEPTIONS - LONGLIFE
TRAINING
• Participant (B) The group develops activities and
participations providing enriched thematics
which are studied.
• Participant (C) I’m at GETED to reflect about the
use of the Technologies in the educational
context, to learn, to share experiences and to
discover … with participants
• Participant (D) I feel like a researcher (curious),
more critical in relation to my professional
practice from the readings done at the group.

9. COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITIES AT
A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
Communities, to be considered as such,
should have an objective, an identity,
communication, trust, reputation, group
formation, borders, government, change
or commerce, expression and history
(TYPALDOS, 2000).

10. SHARING EXPERIENCES
Menezes et al. (2002) state that teachers
build their knowledge through their
experiences and share them with other
acquired knowledge, with other people,
enriching and offering more quality to their
pedagogical works

11. A SPACE OF CHANGES AND
MOMENTS OF REFLECTION
• Participant (A) I found this interview at the
internet... It is about virtual communities. Well, I
think you know a lot about this subject, but I
found it interesting. I hope you like it.
• Participant (B) Actually, it is interesting the way
how the virtual community is shown, it awakes
us to think about building one, how to do it and
with which objectives.
• Participant (C) I have already finished reading it.
Thanks. I have not known it yet. As we can see,
the author wrote quite a lot about this subject.

12. INSTIGATING THE LEARNING
PROCESS
• Participant (A) Hi, everybody. I had the pleasure to
watch the film “With Honors”, suggested by the teacher
B in our last meeting and I understood that the focus of
the film is the thesis of life itself. It is about Einstein and
the relativity, about politics, that to write it is necessary a
lot of critical reading from the books and from the world.
• Participant (C) Thanks teacher A for sharing with us
information about the film “With Honors”. Reading your
observations I started to think what we our intentions are
when giving the students some orientations... we give to
our pupils during the development of their researches
and what they intend with their own researches.

13. RESPONSIBILITY OF
SEARCHING AND ANALYZING
CRITICALLY KNOWLEDGE
• Participant (A) In the next meeting of GETED we
will talk about the thematic WIKI. We will firstly
use a forum to read the text and then to debate
about it.
• Participant (B) I believe that the proposal is
interesting. Even thought it causes in the
beginning some queerness, the situation can
provide us new learning experiences and
increase our familiarity to new contexts. I will
read the text in order to participate with some
comments.

14. SHARING UNDERSTANDINGS
Lave and Wenger (1991, p.98) state that
“Community does not imply necessarily
co-presence, a well-defined identifiable
group, or socially visible boundaries. It
does imply participation in an activity
system about which participants share
understandings concerning what they are
doing and what that means in their lives
and for their communities”.

15. SOME CONSIDERATIONS
In face of the statements written by them
on the platform focusing various subjects,
we believe that innovation is not restricted
to the use of the technology, but teacher´s
appropriation of these resources, creating
new ways of working, of sharing
knowledge, of dealing with students, of
producing different ways of teaching and
learning.

16. REFERENCES
• LAVE, J. & WENGER, E. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Participation, New York, Cambridge University Press
• MENEZES, Crediné Silva et al. , 2002, Uma Proposta Baseada em
Comunidades Virtuais de Aprendizagem, Anais do XIII Simpósio Brasileiro
de Informática na Educação – XIII SBIE, São Leopoldo/RS, vol. 1, pp. 168-
177
• PERRENOUD, P. , 1999, Formar professores em contextos sociais em mudança:
prática reflexiva e participação crítica, in Revista Brasileira de Educação, n. 12,
set/nov/dez, p. 5-21
• PIMENTA, S. G., 1999, Formação de professores: identidade e saberes da docência,
in. Saberes pedagógicos e atividade docente, Cortez, São Paulo
• SAMPAIO, M. N. & LEITE, L. S. , 1999, Alfabetização tecnológica do
professor, Vozes, Petrópolis, RJ
• TYPALDOS, C. , 2000, Shared Knowledge and a common Purpose: Using
the 12 principles of civilization to build web communities, Retrieved from the
http://www.RealCommunities.com