The development of new technological resources and the popularization of access to online content, for the most part free, such as textbooks, articles, blogs, videos, games and simulations, have modified the ways learning take place. These resources enable students to take an active approach to learning, in the performance of tasks related to preexisting content, as well as in the creation of new materials. In Brazil, the Administration course is designed around three subjects: basics, vocational training, and technologies. Basic training includes anthropology, politics, sociology, philosophy, psychology, ethics, human behaviour, economics, accounting, communication and information technologies, and legal sciences. The sociology course explores the aspects of culture, control, social stratification, rationality and power, and the studies of the classical sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) all in the context of organization and work processes. Since it includes a plethora of theoretical content, the students find it difficult to assimilate the subject with the actual practice of Administration, making it necessary to seek new tools to assist in the relationship between the theory and its application. The purpose of this article is to present the experience of designing blogs, carried out by four groups of students in Sociology Applied to Administration from UFRGS (Brazil). Although new technologies have always been used in management education, it has increased recently, both through the emergence of new technologies and experimentation and use of them in the classroom. Faster processors, faster download, better image quality and cheaper computers and screens have helped make it possible to use video and audio in real time. As a result, websites such as iTunes U, YouTube, and Academic Earth are becoming global repositories for sharing teaching materials. Advances in technology permit two major changes in management education. First, technology reduces passive learning, where the student only partakes of the content presented by the professor. Second, it allows for the building of active learning, both face-to-face and virtual, enabling students to broaden their participation as actors in the process. Thus, as can be seen, different technological resources may be used to encourage learning in management, where presentation of these experiences is relevant for greater popularization of these practices. The primary objective of making a blog, which entails a website in which it is possible to post quickly and that may contain text, photos, videos and animations, is to reinforce the content studied during the course and make students reflect on it. In addition, the choice to produce a blog as one of the course assignments was for the purpose of building a closer link between classical content and the virtual world that is part of most young people's lives. The assignment was carried out in groups of four or five students and was comprised of four main stages: i) creation of the blog and giving it a name; ii) weekly posts related to the course content; iii) preparation of a 5-10 minute video on one of the themes studied; and iv) presentation of the blog and its evaluation by co-students. The creation and development of blogs by students yielded a number of benefits in the learning process. The main ones include: greater student interaction through weekly group activities; - stimulating creativity in the creation of the blog and posting challenges; monitor weekly how the content studied was being understood by the students, making it possible to correct any misunderstanding of concepts and to delve deeper into topics of greatest interest; expand study time beyond the realm of the classroom; involvement of students in the assessment process; development of new skills such as designing a blog and creating videos.
展开▼