Red social online como entorno virtual de aprendizaje.

The purpose of this paper is to share the experience of the design, use and management of an online social network as a virtual learning environment for the Virtual Communities Seminar taught at the Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City campus. This experience on the use of ICTs in teaching is basically oriented by Vygotsky's socioculturalism and by the learning theory for the digital age called connectivism, proposed by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. With the arrival of Web 2.0, which facilitates communication, information interchange and cooperation, social interactions mediated by technology have become a disturbing phenomenon in front of the phenomenal growth of online social networks like Facebook and Twitter, just to name two of the most popular platforms in Mexico. It should be noted that in these virtual scenarios daily interact the so-called digital natives who attend university classrooms. In front of this scenario, we consider to appropriate the possibilities of these digital platforms of social interaction to promote a virtual environment, because of the richness of experience for both the involved teachers and affiants, because it is all about of an interactive and multimedia scenario that encourages learning, generation and socialization of knowledge.

Introducción -- Marco teórico -- El socioculturalismo de Vigotsky -- El conectivismo, modelo de aprendizaje para la era digital -- Nuevos entornos para el aprendizaje -- Gestión de entornos virtuales de aprendizaje -- Caso: la red social del secovi -- Conclusiones