• Energy Research

sMOOCs (social massive open online courses) have revealed themselves as a remarkable opportunity to foster the culture of participation and open knowledge and sustainability. Due to their communicative potential, they make it possible for participants to interact, to create ubiquitous learning, and to build knowledge in a collective way. This educational and communicative line has set the basis for the European ECO (e-learning, communication, open data) Project, i.e., the purpose of our study, which, beyond training teachers, is decidedly betting on open life-long education. The results presented in the study have been elicited by following a quantitative methodology, through the analysis of a “sMOOC Step by Step” community, intended to become an educational gate to students’ empowerment, shared knowledge, and participation in the course. Results show that collaborative work practices organized by teachers in that virtual learning community encourage educational changes. Both the degree of satisfaction with the learning achieved and the way students perceive its direct applicability to real-life professional contexts prove the effectiveness of this training model. Our research has expanded, aiming to discover sMOOCs opportunities for teacher training and assessing the motivation shown by the virtual learning community towards such an educational reality.

Youth is increasingly learning in non-conventional contexts, such as social networks or video platforms, courses, and tutorials. This research aims to diagnose the role of participatory culture, digital resources, social networks, and, specifically, YouTube, in learning processes and the acquisition of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills, specifically in mathematics, also analyzing the role of youtubers and, in contrast, teachers, both learning leaders in the formation of these skills. In order to accomplish this, mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) were used, based on a survey applied to 4845 Italian adolescents, as well as a content analysis of the videos and YouTube channel of the Italian educational influencer Elia Bombardelli, one of the most followed and best rated in this country. Also, an in-depth interview has been applied to 12 Italian secondary school teachers. Among the main findings, it is highlighted that all adolescents value YouTube videos as a key resource to improve their school performance, rating youtubers better than teachers. However, it is remarkable that in the processes of learning and acquisition of STEM competencies, they prefer to interact with teachers rather than with youtubers.