The increasing incorporation of digital technologies in education, in particular, the non-formal education is associated to the formation and expansion of a new type of learning, the learning mobility, also called mobile learning. For that mobile learning activities occur it is required a digital platform mobile, whose main function is to house an educational environment in the virtual space. This environment is a locus of multi-interactions, as a rule, practiced among learners, teachers and other actors, which are provided with mobile devices (such as mobile phones and tablets) may, at any time and place, share teaching resources and media, information, knowledge, experience etc.

A platform to host a virtual space must be structured in format and design flexible to encourage, especially the aspects of interactivity and interaction involved in implementing activities of teaching and learning. In this way, the construction of a digital platform should be guided by an innovative methodology and a set of technologies capable of favoring the interactivity, the integration, the sharing and exchange of knowledge, and information between the actors involved. Communicational aspects arising from the use of digital technologies should also be considered, since it can provide elements to guide the design of a platform that will meet the needs imposed by the emergence of a new modality of communication, which is set by the interactivity, horizontality, and communicative bidirectionality.

Digital technologies are taken as instruments that facilitate the interactions between people, which coexist in social networks, in an interactive, horizontal and collaborative way. For this reason, they are potentially facilitator of the creation and expansion of opportunities for participation and intervention which arose in the communicational process. Considered as communicational media, these technologies are also highlighted for being carriers of different languages and meanings, revealing a sociocultural character, typical of events such as occur in interpersonal interactions.

Those issues marked the preparation of a proposal for creating a digital mobile platform for housing virtual space that mirror the needs of the target audience for information and knowledge of the implementation of the new Brazilian Forest Code¹ ( Brasil , 2012). That is an important legal framework newly imposed by the Government of Brazil, which aims at the protection of native vegetation, in the environmental and forestry dimensions, throughout the country.

For the implementation of this legislation, public services, such as the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation2 (Embrapa) were called to contribute with actions directed to the meeting, selection, processing and provision of information about the Forest Code. As the target audience, we can mention the rural producers and entrepreneurs, technicians, extension workers, researchers, students, etc. Within the institutional scope of Embrapa, it is noticeable the lack of virtual environments for the provision of information such as informational multimedia on themes involving the Forest Code.

In addition, regarding the creation of virtual mobile spaces, it is noted the existence of methodological options applied to the production and organization of digital media content, just as there are a variety of tools and technological resources to support the development of software applications in this area.

This context of lack of virtual environments for mobile multimedia at Embrapa, coupled with institutional guidelines for the identification of information technology solutions (IT) appropriate to the adequacy of the rural landscape to the Forest Code, has contributed to the explanation of the research question: what characteristics a digital platform must has to serve as a space of sharing, dissemination of information, collaboration and learning and contribute to the implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code?

Faced with this problem, which is reflected in the lack of a virtual environment to meet the demand of information and knowledge to support the implementation of Brazilian forestry legislation, we proposed the creation of a digital and virtual media platform called e-Códex, using web technologies to the development of applications and solutions for access via mobile devices. The proposal steps were permeated by the search for answers to recurrent questions about the need to organize and provide information and knowledge, such as: A) what methodology should be adopted for creating a digital platform focused on the production and organization of communicational and educational information content, with access via mobile devices? B) What technologies (tools, applications, etc.) should be adopted for creating and structuring this digital platform for access via mobile devices? C) What scope should be defined for the creation of a platform (objectives to be achieved―immersion, agency and engagement in learning; topics/sub-themes to be addressed; competences and skills to be developed, etc.)?

Embrapa is a public company linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply of Brazil, which has the mission of enabling solutions for research, development and innovation for sustainability of agriculture in favor of Brazilian society. The generation of knowledge, the development of technologies and the dissemination of information are the main strategic objectives of Embrapa (Embrapa, 2014).

The article is divided into six sections, including this introduction. In Section 2, the education is discussed under the perspective of digital technologies and multimodal learning3, favoring a logical thread for questions and discussions that will be presented in other chapters. Section 3 presents the theoretical aspects that underpin the concepts of space and cyberspace, in particular, the concept of virtual space created for access via mobile devices and locative media, under the perspective of ubiquity, pervasivity, hybridity, and multimodality. In Section 4 we presented the methodology and procedures adopted in the development of the virtual platform proposal. Then, in Section 5 we presented and discussed the results of the survey and the explanation of the proposed digital platform e-Códex. Finally, in Section 6 we presented the conclusions.

Digital technologies have been considered technological devices of vital importance for education because it facilitates the construction of knowledge among students, especially if associated with a theory sociointeractionist (Ayas, 2006). That indicates educational processes that occur through the technologies and digital tools need to be focused on the possibility for people to build the knowledge based on practice, skills, experiences and culture of the collective of people who are part of the situation (Mayes & Freitas, 2004).

Digital technologies, in particular wireless mobile devices with interactional potential, authorship and collaboration are appropriate to the preparation of projects pedagogical, which aim at helping the apprentice in the construction of knowledge from his own life experience and the context in which it operates (Almeida & Valente, 2012). In an educational process under such characteristics it is assumed that learning should be made from the interaction that people make between them and the way in which they are entered, as occurs in learning. In this type of learning people are involved in various representations of meaning based in various ways and means of language. The multimodal learning constitutes a challenge for educators who need to create routes of interdependent, complementary, open, and multiple learning, to promote in the apprentices engaging experiences and interactions which allow them to explore situations or concepts through observation or collaborative activities. According to Freitas & Neumann (2009), the multimodal learning involves learners in different elements of the learning cycle, favoring the transfer of behavior patterns from a context to another.

Multimodal learning approach aligns to the idea of designing a virtual hybrid space, taking it as a potential source of learning in the context of non-formal education. Firstly, because in multimodal learning people can build, share and explore various representations of meanings through narratives essentially shaped to the context of practical situations common to the apprentices. Secondly, in multimodal learning it is possible for apprentices to examine new conceptual trajectories, mobilizing all its resources and cognitive strategies to understand the experience they are experiencing. And finally, the multimodal learning makes clearer the different media in the context of an educational process, not only as channels, but mainly as a means of interaction that promote learning, since they enjoy the best of each one offers (Torres et al., 2015).

Along the civilizing process, humanity has become socially constituted, creating family, grouping into tribes, villages and communities, generating affectional bonds, developing the language, creating instruments and establishing rules for the conduct of peaceful coexistence, anyway, transforming the nature and culture (Backes, 2013). As said by Maffesoli (1996: p. 234), the nature “is no longer considered simply as an object to be exploited, but it is increasingly a partnership process”.

Through the work, mankind, in his transforming role of nature, gave rise to the creation of instruments, originally designed for fishing and hunting, which with the passing of time were also used as weapons. At all times, both the instruments as the techniques4 bring engendered the respect that man establishes with the nature, resulting in the creation of the material conditions for human existence, as well as in the construction of their spaces of coexistence. Thus, since its origin, the mankind follows transforming the reality through the development of tools and techniques, promoting leap of evolution, since the creation of simple utensils for survival, in the early days, to the sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT), in the present day.

Space is a term that encompasses many concepts, which are bound to different areas of knowledge, such as mathematics, cosmology, philosophy, geometry, physics, statistical mechanics and practice, physical mechanics etc. Nowadays, other spaces are created, directed to the perception and the human experiences, and in this perspective, “[...] Space start to have a psychic statute, social and historical that presents an overflowing multiplicity of facets” (Santaella, 2011a: p. 164). Thus, in this space of so-called human experience, are included the primitive space, the perceptual space and the space of existence

This is a survey of exploratory and descriptive and qualitative approach, developed at Embrapa Agricultural Informatics7, under the Special Project Forest Code8, aiming at the construction of a digital space to share and disseminate informational content, to promote collaboration and learning. The research was carried out in two phases. The qualitative phase has as main objective the identification, from a review of the literature of some theoretical and conceptual constructs, in topics that involve the cyberspace, the digital media and education in virtual spaces, in order to subsidize the development of a digital platform to support the actions relating to the Special Project Forest Code of Embrapa. The phase of research had as main objective to identify, along with members of the Special Project Forest Code the perceptions and the requirements of interaction in a digital virtual space, in order to favour a horizontal and dialogic relationship, conducive to new learnings.

The collection of data from the qualitative phase followed the steps described in Figure 1. In this Figure 1, the three phases involved in data collection are represented as “Input”, which concerns of the problems and goals, primary sources, search strings and qualification criteria; “Processing” which consists of the realization of searches, analysis of results and documentation; “Output” which includes of the register and data storage, synthesis of results and elaboration of the theoretical constructs.

Once adjusted the criteria established in entry phase, the procedure have been adopted for the implementation of the processing phase: a) search in databases and periodicals; (b) Selection of reading of the collected material (1st selection consisted of the identification of title, abstract and keywords; 2nd selection consisted in reading the introduction and the conclusion of the selected documents by title, abstract and keywords; 3rd selection corresponded to the complete reading of selected documents in the second phase: reading of the introduction and conclusion); c) synthesis and results abstracted from the complete reading of the documents. The third phase consisted of identifying the theoretical constructs that were abstracted from the registry held at the stage of processing and contents of these records.

To perform the data collection in phase of research, it was developed a multiple choice questionnaire⁹, of type Likert scale (Bozal, 2006). The questionnaire was applied online to 123 people, members of the Special Project Forest Code. There was no information about the subject’s profile characterization. From 123 people who composed the research universe, we obtained the answer of 61 people (49.5% of the universe). This questionnaire used as a basis the constructs abstracted in the qualitative phase of the study, referring the characteristics that should guide the design of a digital platform, whose goal is to foster collaboration, sharing, dissemination and learning.

Four important constructs that guide the development of a digital platform were defined. The first, called generic construct, seeks to understand how much the research subjects consider important to create a digital platform to disseminate information, promote collaboration and learning about issues inherent to the Forest Code and the degree of importance they attach to it.

The second construct refers to the characteristics that a platform of sharing/dissemination, collaboration and learning must have to fulfill its objectives and the degree of contribution that such characteristics could provide to the subjects that access.

The third construct is linked to the use of the platform, i.e., identifies whether the subjects who would access the platform, would do it for sharing/dissemination of information, cooperation with partners in discussions on the theme or for learning/achievement of knowledge.

The fourth construct is on how they the contents and the activities should be arranged on the platform.

The quantitative data were processed through the analysis of correspondence which is a multivariate technique for exploratory analysis of categorized data (Carvalho et al., 2002). The technique of correspondence analysis converts an array of non-negative data in a particular type of chart/map that allows us to visualize “[...] the proximity/distance and the relationships between rows and columns (stimuli) of a contingency table (usually also called cross table, crossing, crosstab), in two or more dimensions” (Cunha Jr., 2000: p. 34). This enables the relationship between the lines between the columns and rows and columns can be interpreted. This technique was chosen because, besides being more appropriate for the type of data collected in this survey of descriptive nature, it also promotes the versatility in the treatment of categorical variables and makes it easier the implementation and interpretation of the results.