Constructivism and ICTs to Improve Language Skills

Se examina la experiencia de los estudiantes y los profesores de dos grupos de un curso de Elocución con el uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TICs), para mejorar sus habilidades de expresión oral en inglés. Se presenta el diseño del curso y la metodología en la cual se fundamentó, así como las apreciaciones de los trabajos de estos a lumnos a la hora de mejorar las habilidades comunicativas orales por medio del enfoque constructivista. Se incluyen recomendaciones para poner en práctica esta metodología.A description is provided here of the experience of the students and teachers of two Elocution courses in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were used to improve oral communication skills in English. Reference is made to the design of the course and the methodology it is based on, together with some insights of the assignments that students did to improve their English speaking skills through the constructivism approach. Recommendations are also provided for others interested in using this type of methodology.

The virtual class as a knowledge democratization model

This paper presents the conceptualization and use of a virtual classroom in the course EIF-200 Fundamentos de Informática, first course in the Information Systems Engineering career of the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica. The virtual classroom is seen as a complement to the class and is conceived as a space that allows to centralize teaching resources, thereby promoting the  democratization of knowledge among students and teachers. Furthermore, this concept of virtual classroom helps to reduce the culture of individualism, present many times in university teaching practices, and contributes to create new opportunities to learn from other colleagues within a culture of reflection, analysis and respectful dialogue aimed to improve the teaching practices.

El rol de la biblioteca escolar: centro de recursos en el ambiente educacional actual

El principio 7 de la Declaración de los Derechos del Niño (Asamblea General de la ONU, 1959) declara en parte: "el niño tiene el derecho de recibir educación la cual será gratuita y obligatoria... Se le dará una educación que promueva su cultura general y lo capacita sobre una base de oportunidad equitativa para desarrollar sus habilidades su juicio individual y su sentido de responsabilidad moral y social, y para llegar a ser un miembro útil de la sociedad". Yo les expongo a Uds. que la biblioteca escolar centro de recursos es el instrumento general esencial para cumplir este derecho del niño.Dentro del alcance comprehensivo de materiales y la adquisición objetiva de sus materiales, la biblioteca escolar complementa y apoya todos los aspectos del programa educacional.Las bibliotecas escolares centros de recursos tal como se están desarrollándose hoy en día alrededor del mundo, están convirtiéndose en centros de un reto excitante. Son un reto para el maestro bibliotecario o especialista en centros de recursos o cualquier denominación que se use para identificar al bibliotecario escolar. Ellos retan la ingenuidad y creatividad de uno, las aptitudes gerenciales, financieras, la comprensión educativa y conciencia comunitaria, aceptación tecnológica y facilidad de utilización del mismo. Pero, más que todo, ellos retan nuestra habilidad para proveer servicios para estudiantes y maestros con tantas clases de medios como podamos traer nuestros programas.

How to Achieve Professional Skills in Higher Education?

During the last decade, higher education has tried to focus education on the achievement of professional skills. It is interesting to see how the learning strategies implemented may facilitate or make more difficult the achievement of competencies. By dealing with the challenge of a competency-based education approach, higher education points out the need of knowing how to build such competencies, i.e. how to design a learning strategy. Not much importance has been given to this issue, probably because the competencies can be confused with abilities, skills and attitudes and, therefore, the model can be associated to in- or out-of-classroom activities without a strategy to articulate the knowledge acquired with the cultural, social and economic contexts of the community and labor spheres, i.e., as a whole (Tobón, 2005). This paper analyzes the epistemological development of the competency-based approach in higher education, focusing on the implementation of professional competencies in the Sociology degree “Licenciatura en Sociología”, in two campuses of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California: Ensenada and Mexicali. This paper describes how competencies are built and explores different theoretical trends, their conceptualization and formation, based on in-depth interviews applied to students and teachers. It provides a mixed study to understand, based on the student’s point of view, the achievements of this study program in terms of professional competencies.

Experiencias de investigación en la secundaria: una visión desde adentro

This paper shows results of the project on Alfabetización crítica en la cultura escolar: Cultura política en la educación secundaria costarricense, currently being developed at the División de  Educología, Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica. The first phase of this research refers to the aim to know more about the reaction of high school students dealing in the traditional authoritarian type school. There are evidences that a repressive and excluding scholar institution does not promote the integral development of the students. This new phase of the project gathers also the voice of teachers. Through the action-research methodology teachers are accompanied and encouraged into a process of deep thinking on those problematic aspects of the school environment. Our main objective is to compare the opinions between students and teachers. experiencias de investigación en la secundaria: una visión desde adentro

Experiences from the course “Pedagogical Intervention in Preschool Education”: the vision from the faculty trainers, preschool teachers and students

As part of the educational formation of students from II level of the Associate dregree, from the Pedagogy major with an emphasis on preschool teaching from Universidad Nacional. There is a course named “Pedagogical Intervention in Early Childhood Education” which carries out the process of the intensive practicum. In this article you will find a review of the program’s objetives, experiences and challenges, taking the experiences from the academic team, who have guided this process over the past two years, and the point of views from students and preschool teachers.