Abstract
Virtuality is a new technological condition in which diverse forms of social interaction take place. The relationship between technology and the construction of social processes, evident at different historical moments (Briggs & Burke, 2002), is something that should not take us by surprise since society tirelessly reinvents itself according to its tools, co-participating in a series of cultural transformations. As Broncano (1995) points out, “culture does not exist, can not survive, if it is not in an ever more technologically sophisticated medium” (p.10).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Internal Team Evaluation: The team constantly evaluates the internal workings of the team based on achieving the common goal, as well as the level of effectiveness of personal participation in the cooperative dynamics.
Asynchronous Cooperative Interaction: A form of social interaction oriented within a pedagogical structure of action that takes place through a type of written virtual communication with a deferred rhythm in teams of students with a shared learning goal in virtual education.
Internal Team Management: The members of the team coordinate and plan their activities in an organized and concerted way by means of plans and routines and through the division of functions to reach the team’s common goal.
Stimulating Interaction: The members of the team promote and support the optimal performance of all the members by means of a set of attitudes that give incentive to personal motivation as well as that of the group.
Virtual Education: A form of education which is outside the classroom or partially outside the classroom that is based on taking advantage of the telematic potential of the Internet to carry out formal or other types of education, by means of learning activities supported by virtual learning environments.
Positive Interdependence: The students realize that their performance depends on the efforts of all the members of the team to reach the shared goal, since to improve the performance of each of the team members is to care for the learning of everyone in the group.
Individual and Team Responsibility: Each member of the team assumes his or her responsibility, but at the same time makes the others responsible for the work they should accomplish to reach the common objectives of all.