This article by Mesa-Rave, Gómez Marín and Arango-Vásquez offers a finely grained account of what actually happened inside the university when classrooms migrated to the screen during the pandemic.
Far from merely describing “Zoom classes,” the authors ask how communicative interactions and collaborative learning took shape within the virtual campus of the University of Medellín. Their approach is distinctly sociopedagogical: it understands technology-mediated education as a web of social, affective and cognitive relationships, rather than simply a matter of platforms and tools. Drawing on a documentary review, an analysis of 42 virtual learning environments and interviews with 24 instructors, the study reconstructs how connections between students, faculty, content and digital tools were woven together—or in some cases, unravelled.
One of the paper’s most compelling contributions is the idea of the “digital campus” as a new social space within the university. The UVirtual Académica platform emerges not merely as a repository for assignments but as a space where social presence, community belonging and emotional support are negotiated during periods of isolation.
The analysis shows that although assessment activities and document sharing dominated the platform’s use, communicative interactions became richer wherever collaborative learning strategies were implemented—class projects, tutoring, peer-assessment activities and well-designed forums. In those spaces, there was more academic discussion, greater peer recognition and a stronger integration of cognitive, social and affective dimensions. At the same time, instructors’ narratives reveal a mosaic of experiences: enthusiasm among those already experimenting with digital tools, ambivalence among those who preferred the physical classroom and resistance among those with more limited technological competence.
From a sociological perspective on education, the study offers a clear conclusion: technology alone does not guarantee collaboration or meaningful communication. It is pedagogical choices and institutional conditions that determine whether an LMS becomes a network of academic and emotional support—or merely a digital dropbox.
The study underscores the importance of deliberately designing collaborative learning scenarios that are sensitive to the affective dimension and to students’ lived contexts, so that technology-mediated instruction does not simply reproduce the lecture in digital form, but instead fosters learning communities that cushion anxiety, redistribute support and strengthen student agency in higher education.
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How to Cite: Mesa Rave, N., Gómez Marín, A., & Arango Vásquez, S. I. (2023). Collaborative Technology-Mediated Teaching-Learning Scenarios to Promote Communicative Interactions in Higher Education. RIED-Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 26(2), 259–282. https://doi.org/10.5944/ried.26.2.36241
