In academic events, the term webinar, originally from the English language (web based seminar), has been used a lot lately. The “web-based seminar” is an educational strategy that has been shown to be effective in the context of Emergency Remote Education. Thinking about it, the Pedagogical Coordination of Distance Education of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), will promote, from September 16, 2020, the series of webinars: “As we are living in pandemic times: let’s talk about Us?”.

According to the Pedagogical Coordinator of Distance Education at UFRN, Lilian Giotto Zaros de Medeiros, “the idea is to promote a moment of discussion and reflection on topics listed by students and by the Pedagogical Coordination team and that has been afflicting everyone in this pandemic”. Also according to Professor Lilian Giotto, this experience of educational action can be counted as a workload of Academic-Scientific-Cultural Activities (AACC), mandatory in the curricular structure of undergraduate courses at the University.

Interaction with distance learning students

The online activities will be directed to students of UFRN distance education courses and will involve professors, technical-administrative staff and other collaborators who work in this type of teaching at the University. Among the main objectives is to provide moments of learning and reflection on various themes and strategies of (about) living related to the reality faced during the pandemic of the covid-19.

The program will be developed weekly, over 10 weeks, with an estimated duration of 1 hour in each webinar session. The virtual events will be transmitted through the free software BigBlueButton, available on the page of the Pedagogical Coordination, within the Mandacaru Academic Virtual Learning Environment.

Registrations

Registrations must be made at Sigaa, clicking on Extension – View Courses or Events, and then just type the name of the Action Title (How are we living in pandemic times: are we going to talk about us?). Students who do not enroll will be able to participate in the activities, but will not receive the certificate. For the issuance of the document, the workload of 80% participation will be considered, which is equivalent to 8 virtual meetings.

Bruno Cássio – SEDIS / UFRN Media Sector.