Ahir i avui, la Sílvia Simon ha participat al congrés ICERI 2019 de Sevilla. Fa anys vaig ser a una de les trobades de l’organització IATED, que en munta a diversos llocs (vaig ser a València).
Aquest cop, la Sílvia ha presentat dues comunicacions ben diferents, en què he tingut la sort de participar: una de la Xarxa d’Innovació Docent en Virtualització de la Docència, XIDVD de la UdG, que és el resultat d’una enquesta que vam fer sobre la percepció de la comunitat unviersitària sobre el que vol dir “Virtualització de la Docència”:
Resum:
During the last decades a need has emerged to redefine the concept of “distance learning”, considering it as an education that takes place in different moments and at different places, thus allowing students to choose where and when to learn and where to find learning resources. These changes led to new forms of learning related to online resources and procedures. In particular, online-only universities have transformed and adapted their offline, non-presential teaching towards online learning. Furthermore, MOOCs and their derivatives have emerged as a very powerful way to learn, both for initial higher education, and for continued education. Traditional universities (i.e., most higher-education systems) have embraced online teaching and learning at different levels of involvement. New challenges related to blended learning have appeared : flipped classrooms, e-Learning experiences, mobile-learning activities, online/virtual laboratories, Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), gamification, etc. All these new teaching and learning experiences seem to be an efficient way to enhance higher education’s mission, yet the road to implementing innovative processes in this field has found some resistance both at instructor and body governance levels. Semipresential studies (besides blended learning) is another way to enter the realm of online learning. However, one must note that public perception of the usefulness of online, blended and partially online learning does not bear a clear idea by society. Teaching and learning are changing every day, in a very fast way, so there is no time to assess the new challenges. From our team (innovative network in teaching virtualization at the University of Girona), we were able to assess the key perceptions about virtualization (in the sense of non-classroom teaching) by those two collectives of people involved in teaching and learning: students and teachers. They were asked what they considered as virtualizing the learning/teaching, where teachers and students may not have the same answer. Relating to this subject, they were also asked about their preferences in virtual teaching: virtual or face-to-face supervising? Or what about lectures? Do they prefer them with or without professor? And exercises? It is enough to upload them to the website/Moodle? Although these students are studying in a face-to-face university, they appreciate to self-manage their studies by doing the activities any place, any time. However, to our surprise, many students think that traditional, blackboard-based lectures are still valid, and that online activities might be rather limited to sharing of educational resources. In that sense, students and teachers differ from what might be expected from the ideas and expectations of innovative groups in higher education Moreover, this communication will try to provide new ideas on the concept of teaching virtualization both in time and in space, related to semipresentiality and to online-only courses. The results of the survey, in the form of perceptions, which are different from expected outcomes, allow us to propose some changes that may lead to somewhat disrupting university studies.
Una altra comunicació ha estat sobre els 52 Jocs amb la Taula Periòdica dels Elements Químics, una actualització de presentacions anteriors en congressos de caire més científic:
Resum:
Year 2019 has been declared by UNESCO to be the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Elements. This is a great opportunity for Chemistry and Science to increase Public Awareness of the current issues the world faces as far as Chemistry is concerned. Within this Pubic Awareness, special attention should be done to students, from primary schools to university, though secondary school. The Periodic Table itself is rather well known by the students, but in general its key properties are not well assessed: (1) a sequential arrangement of atomic entities, with natural numbers 1 through 118 (as of 2019); (2) a periodic repetition of properties, both physical (structure) and chemical (behaviour with respect to other atoms and molecules); (3) a similar behavior among columns. The Periodic Table has a property that makes it different from other arrangements: besides containing elements labelled 1 through 118, there is a biunivocal correspondence between a natural number and a chemical symbol (and its name, indeed). Further, chemical symbols bear one or two letters. This allows for plenty of ideas to use in games and play. This fascinating collection of natural numbers/symbols allows thus to adapt classical games and to create new ones. We are involved in building up a collection of 52 games using the Periodic Table,1 which allows not only to foster the public awareness of the Table, but also to teach and learn about its properties, and eventually chemistry. Furthermore, the fact that the Periodic Table contains ca. two poker playing card sets (52 cards each), or that a year contains ca. three Periodic Tables, is exploited in the games we have been creating in the below website. Thus, the different games are not addressed to chemistry, but to mathematic. In our team, we have been working in how to explain abstract concepts in a very planar way. The project #52JocsTP is an example, but there are other concepts related to chemistry (quantum chemistry) which are really difficult to make them understand. Thus, besides those games with the Periodic Table, we will introduce analogies and other games using playing cards to explain in a plain way difficult, complex concepts in Chemistry and Physics: entropy, quantum mechanics (superposition principle, tunneling effect, Einstein-Podalski-Rosen entangled pairs, Quantum Cryptography, etc.), Entropy, Aromaticity, Electron Density – and indeed the Chemical Bond. These games, analogies, and other activities related to Science Communication are part of two initiatives: the project on Low-Cost Communication of Research (#clowcore), and the project on Magic and Science (#magsci). Both projects are not only related to Science Communcation, but they also can help to introduce abstract concepts in primary, secondary and also university students.
Sembla que hi havaia moltes sessions paral·leles (més de 10) i que els assistents es van repartir força, però segur que totes dues comunicacions hauran arribat a tothom, i a més queden registrades i cercables.
Moltes gràcies a la Sílvia per haver fet l’esforç de preparar aquestes presentacions, de fer les comunicacions, i de viatjar… I gràcies a tots els coautors per les bones estones de discussió. Perquè de la segona ja n’he parlat moltes vegades, però de la primera, hauríem de saber projectar-la cap al futur, segurament cap a la intel·ligència artificial en l’educació superior.