PROPOSED USAGE MODEL IN E-CITY

ECity aims at being integrated into a clear pedagogical methodology, PBL oriented, to ensure that maximum relevance is given to the learning process, and not the technology. This pedagogical methodology includes a full and complex process. It starts with the teacher in the early work stages and ends with the students fully engaged, self-evaluating and interacting.

According to what was explained in the previous section the possible places of use are basically two: the classroom and elsewhere outside the classroom. Outside the classroom, the teacher can prepare and organize classes and subjects. He/she can look for problems that are best suited, create new problems or modify existing ones. Finally, he/she can analyse the results and react to them, reinforcing a concept for example.

In the classroom, the teacher presents and teaches the subject and introduces eCity. He/She indicates briefly as students have to use the platform and solves a small test problem (when students have never used the tool before), indicates how and when students can use eCity, solves doubts, makes search patterns, guide during the acquiring information's process, help to relate new concepts with those already known and participates in the evaluation process. If the teacher chooses, the student begins to use the platform and to solve the problem, alone or in groups (deepened later in this aspect). He/She can ask the teacher and can be oriented and/or directed in case he/she needs it. He/She interacts with peers and self-evaluates and evaluates other students.