The Future of Education

The e-learning contexts appeal to the autonomy of the learner in the construction of knowledge. The teacher has a very important role in designing environments that are appropriate for the development of this competence. Furthermore, the proposed tasks, and the methodologies as well, have a significant impact on the achievement of this goal. In any process of education activities are a key element as mediators of the teaching-learning process. They can take different styles and meet different objectives depending on the competencies that you wish to achieve. Concept it’s a multi-sensory tool that uses visuo-spatial orientation to integrate information helping students organize and retain it. This role is reinforced when we are working with students in e-learning due to its ability to help organizing the knowledge and to facilitate the construction of collaborative work. At this level, it promotes discussion and negotiation among the participants of the team leading to a collaborative knowledge construction process.

This study aimed to understand how the use of concept maps is perceived, as a working method in the construction of individual knowledge and in helping collaborative work. The participants were 21 postgraduates e-learning students from an educational field. This study and its preliminary results show the potential of the conceptual maps as a working tool, as well as the methodology adopted by us to promote not only individual learning but also collaborative work. As a general observation, concept maps were considered a tool that allows a better understanding and representation of the different theme contents. However, the construction of concept maps in group is a more complex process.