Experience in Distance Learning in Meteorology.

MOIRA DOYLE; ELIZABETH CASTAÑEDA; LEONOR BONAN; LORENA GONZALEZ; ANA PITTARO

Congreso; Calmet On Line; 2014

Eumetcal

During 2013 the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences (DCAO) of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina faced a new challenge: transforming a presential course on General Meteorology into a distance learning course. This first experience in distance learning brought together a group of experts in meteorology, distance learning and didactics of science teaching. Each expert with her own language and working methodology. Communication within the group was the first bridge to build, this included understanding and acquiring the use of new terms by all experts such as objective and purpose, which had to be defined for each unit of the course. Each unit has a written text for the student to study which was elaborated by experts of DCAO. In general there is hardly any written material available in Spanish. Writing lessons in a clear, coherent, and complete text for a distance student to read, understand and learn was another enriching experience in this process. A pedagogical point of view was one of the reviews received, which many times questioned many expressions, sentences or statements which meteorologists took for granted. After a year of hard work the distance learning course is ready to see light during the second semester 2014. Using Moodle platform students will take a course on General Meteorology, their first Atmospheric Science course in the University of Buenos Aires.