Students' Perception of Distributed Teaching Presence in Discussion Forums. A Case Study
The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been implemented regularly in faculty classes in the last two decades. ICT mediated learning environments have the potential to transform educational practices as well as students' learning experiences. Online discussion forums are useful to share graduate students' opinions and the social construction of knowledge. The objective of this chapter is to analyse the distributed teaching presence as reflected in university teachers' contributions through their inputs in the forums of a faculty teaching course. A qualitative research study was conducted to analyse two online virtual courses at the Technological University of Pereira (Colombia) Main results indicate that participants' tended to solely present their own visions, ideas and understandings, but did not compare them with other participants, which had the effect of missing the communicative and interactive potential of e and b learning. Trascending the traditional teaching approaches based on transmission of content and entering into a more constructive and interpersonal communication is key for a proper use of this type of teaching.