Personal development in the virtuality; online activities for individual and group growth

Abstract

Online teaching is commonly offered for courses and it is aimed students acquire specific skills based on the subject requirements. Regarding soft-skills, collaborative and creative activities are usually deployed face-to-face in contrast to online environments, where communication, group dynamics and activities that require interactivity among the participants can be managed easier. Because of this we loose skills acquisition opportunities and other potential benefits of real collaboration mediated by on-line environments. We propose an ICT-based method appropriated for project-based learning, innovative teams and personal development. It has 7 phases and has been designed under the theories of field theories of humanism with the main aim to make possible that everybody in the on-line platform can grow and develop individually together with the group. Professor can apply this as a whole (the 7 phases) or some of them as we have related the phases with on-line tasks. We tested this method with a group of 17 post-graduate students. We concluded that when members have enough maturity and experience, these ICT-based-methods make shared learning possible, with great impact on the course skills and competences, but also on soft skills, which are acquired informally while learning the main course subject.