Dra. Badilla-Quintana, María Graciela

The initial training of quality teachers is seen as a key to improving the learning outcomes of students in Chile. The TYMMI project is one of the initiatives being developed to provide a space for simulation for teaching practices in immersive virtual environments in Second Life and Open Sim. Initial Teachers Training belong to the School of Education at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, participated during 2014 in the implementation of challenges, based on a pedagogical model and teaching strategies such as role play and problem-based learning. Through direct observation and blogs, the results show that participants have an important domain in the pedagogical and technological interaction. Despite the perception of the technical difficulties of using platforms, students emphasize that the experience has been supportive along their teaching practices, and it has allowed them to reinforce subject content, which poses a very motivating intellectual and technological challenge.

Considering multi difficulties that determine the labor of rural teachers who perform their teaching practices in semi-isolated contexts, it is necessary to provide them a supportive system which favors their pedagogical performances to benefit rural students’ education. The aim of this phenomenological study is to describe and analyze how e-mentoring can strengthen pedagogical performances of primary rural teachers with complex geographical accesses in Chile, exploring the subjective experiences of four couples of teachers and mentors that take place in this process by e-mail relationship. Results show the necessity of considering the accompaniment as a horizontal pedagogical assistance which can be influenced by the technological resources availability, identifying an adequate profile of e-mentor to influence teacher adherence to the process, such as his communicative style, empathy, pedagogical and cognitive skills. Finally, this investigation allows projecting a viable model to be applied as support for rural education with access to Internet resource.

This article presents some results obtained partially during the first year of the TYMMI project. TYMMI’s aim is to strengthen the professional performance of pre-service teachers in the real classroom. Through the design of a free immersive virtual world Open Sim we have developed a technology readiness for 27 pre-service high school English teachers who are preparing their career at Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepcion, in Chile. Initial results show some evidence of working in a three dimensional environment and in a virtual learning platform (called EV@ supported by Moodle) through Sloodle. One of the first findings we have gathered are: motivation for using these environments, strengthening ICT skills, and also technological difficulties for the development of the academic activities of interaction during teaching practices.