THE CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL EDUCation.
The article shows the challenges at administrative,teacher-student and technological levels that should face the University toenter virtual education: the teachers’ resistance to the technology and thepedagogic change; the students’ resistance to take the responsibility of theirlearning process in an active way; and the technological, administrative andlegal challenges that implies the three levels of virtual education (totallyvirtual, half-virtual and virtual support to face-to-face courses). It outlinesthat the university should lean on research for not entering this processwithout an appropriate strategic planning, and it suggests some strategies toadvance quickly toward this goal.
Virtual education is a teaching-learning process based on theprinciples of active pedagogy (the student should take the responsibility of afrequent and effective participation), with the characteristics of distanceeducation (during all classes, or most of them, the students and the teacherwill not meet personally, although this could happen in a virtual space), andwith the possibility of synchronous or asynchronous interaction (for example,they can chat with each other in real time using internet services, but also bye-mail or participate in e-groups that are asynchronous technologies that don'trequire that both are on-line at the same time).
In the international arena, virtual education grows everyday, offering programs in basic and secondary education, as well asundergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Today it’s possible to take virtualcourses at some of the most popular universities in the world, which certifiesthe credits that the student acquires at the end. Many other universities,sensitive about the distance problem of many of their candidates, and of theschedule difficulties in others, have begun to implement virtual programs withthe purpose of reaching those students that can’t assist to their campus.
Nowadays, Eastern Catholic University at Rionegro (Colombia,South America) is advancing toward three levels of virtual education: totallyvirtual, half-virtual and virtual support of Campus education, not only with theintention of increasing the number of students (reaching those that are far awayor whose schedules make impossible to assist to the campus), but also with thegoal of improving the quality of the educational process, adding active pedagogyand multimedia tools to the "on Campus" programs. Having that in mind,the University created a Virtual Education Committee that begun their workaround two years ago. The process has been delayed partially due to problems inthe acquisition and assembly of a virtual educational platform, but probablyalso because of the natural human resistance to change.
Right now, the process begins to take a new impulse fromresearch, with the foundation in May of the Research Group on Virtual Educationand Multimedia Technologies for Teaching and Learning, "E-dUCO"; thisgroup has already begun to carry out the first experiences of virtual courses inthis sense, as well as to present the first research project that look for toopen him the one in route to the whole process. The group worksinterdisciplinary, this way: from the skills of engineering we have thetechnological support, from the education specialists we have the pedagogicsupport and from the ability of social sciences we worry about the motivationcomponent and also about educational and social psychology (analyzing the bestway of awake motivation and to promote interaction in the course). Among the"E-dUCO" objectives is to give support, from research, to the VirtualEducation Committee, and it is in this interaction that we have visualized thefollowing challenges that, although they have been thought for our University,they are the same ones that will face any other university in the sameconditions.
