Abstract

As we overcome the instruction paradigm and face the need to promote a student centered model of teaching and learning, educational software are already easier to use, allow interactivity, promote the disjunction of time and space and make possible different modes, like image, sound and video to be incorporated in educational materials and environments. Drawing on multimodal literacy perspective of learning and pedagogy, this paper focuses on the subject New Technologies Applied to Education taught in a teacher initial training program. It discusses the effects of the use of Moodle and other technology learning tools in the construction of a student centered environment of learning. Specifically, this research closely observes four domains of student’s (inter)action: Moodle activities (forum, and wikipedia), student’s hands on work group outcomes (educational web, blog and webquest) and the course’s blog (tintafrescavlog.blogspot.com), the latter a non evaluative activity. Results show that when technology’s possibilities come from being virtual into being actual, social relations established among teachers, students and knowledge are restructured and, within this context, student’s learning capability goes much further than the teaching one. It is argued it has come the time to rethink education so as to allow students not only to consume, but also to produce and distribute semiotic resources, taking a more active and critical role in their learning process.