The changes that are taking place in society and higher education in recent years require innovative teaching methodologies, so that students go beyond memorizing concepts or ideas and can perform analysis in a critical or responsible way (Mujica, 2012). Moreover, when these changes occur equally in the development of the profession to which our students aspire to reach.
Often, proposals for educational innovation are limited to the introduction of digital tools in learning processes (Sánchez and Fernández, 2015), although some people criticize that it is limited to the incorporation of ICTs into the education system (Lafuente y Lara, 2013). As pointed out by Magro y Cabello (2013), although technology plays an important role in this change, the main role will be played by people, more specifically, students.
Beyond tools and new technologies, it is necessary to apply training itineraries according to the social and cultural changes derived from the technological and the digital. This new context allows students a way of working oriented to achieve goals (Himanen, 2004) and their greater involvement in the tasks (Del Moral et al, 2014), assuming the responsibility of their learning and at the same time maintaining the motivation through different strategies (Winne, 1995, Wolters, 1998). Educating in this new scenario means developing in the students competences linked to social and ethical elements (Folgueiras and Martínez, 2009, Martínez, 2010), through a collaborative learning that emphasizes the construction of knowledge and not its simple transmission (Keating, 1998).
This communication analyses the application of the methodology of Project-Based Learning (PBL) as a new strategy for the subject “Online Journalistic Writing”, and the opinion that students have of its application in class. This subject focuses on the formation of a specific journalistic criterion for work in the cybermedia and in the development of editorial skills complementary to those of print and audiovisual media. In this way, it gives special relevance to the capacity and ability to plan and produce messages according to the differentiating characteristics of the cyberjournalistic language (hypertextuality, multimedia and interactivity) and to the conventions, principles and narrative functions of journalistic genres on the Internet.
PBL is a teaching strategy in which students, organized in groups, develop projects based on real situations (Boss and Krauss, 2007, Bender, 2012, Patton, 2012, Garrigós and Valero-García, 2012). They plan, develop and evaluate projects that go beyond the classroom and aim to have an impact in the real world.
Online News Research 