THE USE OF MOODLE AND DIGITAL CLASSES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

As technology evolves, teaching methods are improving and getting adapted to different kinds of students and professors. In this context, the traditional class model, the classroom with a board and students organized in rows is not the only learning environment for the students. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the use of digital classes as an alternative teaching trend and the power of virtual teaching environments like the MOODLE - Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. MOODLE is a virtual learning environment free-software which supports both learning and teaching. This work analyses a series of data about the student access to the MOODLE platform in specific universities (Universidade de Sao Paulo - USP, Harvard, Oxford and Yale). In order to compare different uses of the MOODLE in these universities, some factors were selected such as the student engagement in digital classes, their duration and the resources used in its production. Professors from the Escola Politecnica (Polytechnic School - EP), Instituto de Fisica (Physics Institute - IF) and Instituto de Matematica e Estatistica (Math and Statistics Institute - IME) at USP were also interviewed. Furthermore, statistics of some digital classes of undergraduate courses indexed in the Moodle platform were analyzed. This study is expected to allow a clearer analysis of the position of the university in an international scope related to the use of the Moodle platform and the production of video classes, considering the large number of undergraduate courses that already use that virtual environment. Therefore, it will be possible to direct in a more objective way the production of educational videos in higher education. Furthermore, the data acquired and detailed in this article could encourage the exchange of experiences between students around the world through the MOODLE platform. For example, a student from USP could use MOODLEs from other universities to learn about a specific subject in an undergraduate course through its digital classes.