The main objective of the Edul@b research group is to investigate new ways of teaching and learning in mediated and technologically advanced scenarios, in order to optimise their use by teachers, students, professionals and citizens in general, and to transform society through educational practice.
To operationalize our objectives, the activities and projects of the group are distributed in the following research lines:
a) Open Education and Emergent Learning Scenarios
We work by analyzing, categorizing and identifying emerging learning environments (formal, non-formal, and informal) in life-long and life-wide contexts, considering flexibility, collaboration, and interaction as fundamental elements as well as the development of digital competencies as a necessity for citizens in the 21st century (focus: student-citizen).
b) Teacher Professional Development in the Digital Era
Beginning from the development of a competency based framework, strategic and training-focused for teaching in blended and online scenarios. We propose strategies and actions that support teacher professional development in the use and application of digital technologies in the context of life-long learning (focus: teacher).
c) Transforming Educational Institutions through ICT and Online Education: Leadership, Management and Quality
Consists of identifying evidence that influences and impacts education policy in the use of ICT in education, as well as, more concretely, establishing parameters and instruments that facilitate the integration of e-learning in higher education institutions, with quality criteria in support of open education policy (focus: policy and institutions).
The work done in these areas and current trends in education has led us to define a meeting point that includes the lines mentioned: learning ecologies. Learning ecologies happen an umbrella (central working concept) that articulates the interests of the different lines of investigation.
Given the group’s willingness to use research in order to make proposals to transform and improve educational practice with the use and application of emerging technologies, quality and innovation, practices of e-learning it will be taken into consideration as a crosscutting research. We understand quality as a multidimensional concept. In this sense, we want to provide a model of quality analysis based on the different perspectives, sectors and areas involved. To do this, we intend to incorporate elements of quality assessment into each research project.This approach will allow us to add the different dimensions of quality in a framework, related to the different dimensions of e-learning, from an integrated perspective and that results in the improvement of all its processes.
