Formación en Red vs. Educación a distancia: nuevas fronteras de la práctica pedagógica. Del discurso docente único al modelo de la conversación formativa

This article attempts to highlight the problem of definition of concepts that can frame pedagogical practices linked to a new educational paradigm based on Social Web last developments. Through a discussion group taken ahead between August 2009 and March 2010, the international eurolatinoamerican group REDES, compoused by researchers in educational technologies and distance education, have focused the problem of use of terms that identify pedagogical practices taken ahead within and through virtual spaces; further considering educational developments -read through several disciplines such anthropology, phylosophy, cultural and social psychology, sciences of communication). In this reflection, it has been considered how some pedagogical practices on the web are closer to traditional practices that recall traditional classroom settings where teachers' discourse and institutional perspective dominates all activity; whereas other practices can be certainly identified as spaces of participation and knowledge building, thorugh which a dialogic perspective is enacted and generates the expansion of participants' symbolic univers. Nevertheless, it doesn't exist a terminology that is able of distinguish between the above mentioned diversity, being the adopted terms strongly linked with the means and technologies (virtual, electronic, online). Only in the last years it's possible to see the use of key terms associated with the issue of social interactions in a network. Considering this discusion about notions of education, instruction, formation, inside the french perspective (Lesne, 1977; Honoré, 1980, 1994; Barbier, 1980) and considering also the notion of dispositive (Roesler, 2008), this article aims to generate a critical perspective with regards to the denomination distance education -generally linked with a traditional pedagogical practice where knowledge access is dominated by teachers' discourse-; to adopt the concept of networked formation, that gives place to a model which proposal is to build dialogic spaces where learning occurs through conversation.