Professores de língua "na" e "em" rede? Formação continuada de educadores para práticas abertas de (re)produção de materiais didáticos online.

Abstract

The network society, in which we are inserted, allows not only for more dynamic, emerging and complex ways of interacting, but also new ways of teaching, learning and (re)thinking the teaching of languages, through the establishment of networks and connections. In contemporary society, so full of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), being "in network" does not necessarily mean being "in the network", considering that networking demands collaborative epistemologies and open practices among users. In education, this network paradigm is exemplified in the set of initiatives based on (re)production and (re)use of Open Educational Resources (OERs), as part of a political-ideological movement called Open Education. Along this line, the objective of this study is to investigate the attitude adopted by teachers - "in" and/or "in the" network – along with the proposition, implementation and evaluation of two in-service training courses for the production and (re)production of OERs for language teaching. The first course was intended for acting teachers and undergraduates in university language programs – Spanish in the Open University of Brazil (UAB) at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM) in the Distance Education modality; the second, for language teachers in the undergraduate and graduate programs in languages at the Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (UNICAP). Both courses were mediated by a Teaching Authoring Tool named Electronic Learning Organizer (ELO). The reason for choosing this tool is that it is an Open Authoring System (OAS), namely: online, free and adequate for the production and adaptation of different types of materials. Throughout the courses, by participant observation, semi-structured interviews and analysis of the OERs (re)produced by the teacher in training, it was verified that: (1) interaction, a key part of collaborative work and networking, needed to be constantly stimulated, (2) conceptions and beliefs held by the teachers regarding "plagiarism" and "(co)authorship" are related to producing OERs, but are not their main concern, and (3) the pedagogical dimension of OERs and the open practices are the main elements in teacher networks. It is concluded that, in the in-service training of teachers to produce OERs, the pedagogical component should be critically more emphasized, considering that the "in network” process, compared to the "in the network” process, goes beyond the merely technical aspect.