Communicative interactions and collaboration mediated by virtual university learning environments

Teaching and learning scenarios have changed in recent years, surpassing spatial and temporal barriers, mainly due to the pandemic. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) have prevailed over face-to-face settings, with technology-mediated education taking on a leading role and giving rise to new forms of knowledge construction and interaction among educational stakeholders. Although new opportunities for interaction exist, the low student participation in VLEs has motivated research aimed to identify alternatives to increase collaboration in e -learning platforms. This article presents the results of a research oriented to how to foster or enhance communicative interactions and collaboration mediated by ICTs in VLEs. The research was conducted using a qualitative perspective with a hermeneutic methodological approach. For this survey, 124 primary studies and 42 VLEs from the Academic UVirtual platform of the University of Medellin, Colombia, were systematized. As part of the results, the following factors were identified: didactic, mediation, technological, and motivation-feedback, which can facilitate communication and collaboration. Such factors also facilitate: (1) the characterization of communicative interactions to promote collaboration; (2) the definition of actions aimed at fostering critical thinking and self-learning skills, and continuous/flexible teacher-student development; and (3) the implementation of enriched VLEs using online tools.