Abstract:

In the new Higher Education framework students become the main characters, as well as their learning capacity and their autonomy to acquire the required skills. Furthermore, the continuous evaluation of students is highly desired. Consequently, we should provide educational methodologies that achieve these requirements, and the integration of technology by means of e-learning and m-learning strategies, allows the adaptation to the new university scenario. This integration may be crucial in engineering degrees due to the high complexity of the associated subjects. Therefore, we propose to develop virtual methodologies accord to the new educational framework which provide flexibility to the learning-teaching process, speed up the continuous evaluation process of students and enhance the students’ motivation. In particular, we have designed a multiplatform software application, called AIM-Mobile Web Learning platform, focus on promoting interactivity in class and automating the continuous evaluation inside class.

On the one hand, the platform permits teachers to send questions to students during the class and they should instantaneously answer to them by means of their personal mobiles, allowing a real time evaluation of the acquired knowledge. Since the platform can process the collected data, it is possible to measure the mean level of the class. Furthermore, this automatic process helps to speed up the continuous evaluation inside class. As a consequence, the platform promotes a real time interrelation inside class and increases the motivation and participation of students. On the other hand, the platform allows teachers to develop educational material that can be accessible by students from anywhere and anytime. This functionality is very attractive, because when technology is introduced in education it should be taking into account that existing contents have been designed along the time using other techniques, and teachers cannot waste a lot of time to continuously adapt these contents to new technologies. Therefore, the proposed platform permits teachers to develop interactive learning packets in a very easy and fast way. In particular, teachers can integrate different educational resources into the same packet, such as text, images or videos, following an established structure. These didactic contents can be downloaded by students in their personal mobiles. One important strong point of the platform is the individuation chance of the students’ learning process, since they can use and adapt these interactive packets according to their abilities, objectives and skills. Together with safeguarding previous developed contents, our proposal aims to increase the motivation and the self-learning process of students.

Then, the AIM-Mobile Web Learning platform promotes the virtualization of subjects, making the teaching process more dynamic and attractive than traditional methodologies. Although it was initially designed for High Education Engineering degrees, its implementation in other disciplines and educational levels is direct and simple. Indeed, the software tool has been designed so that teachers do not require a deep knowledge in informatics. Consequently, the designed platform could be used in multidisciplinary scenarios and different educational contexts. Moreover, it helps to enhance and speed-up different tasks regarding the educational process, such as the acquisition of specific skills and knowledge.

Keywords:

e-learning, m-learning, Higher Education Engineering degrees, online learning platform, multidisciplinary.