Abstract:

Today, the information and communication technologies and in particular the web 2.0 tools signify a new revolution in the higher education. They offer complementary resources to the classroom teaching, creative areas for innovation and tools for developing constructive and collaborative teaching methodologies. The Web 2.0 technologies can be regarded as a facilitator of a paradigm change of the learning process: education is moving from a teacher-centred system with traditional sources of knowledge to a student-centred system where the teachers have the new role of facilitators of the learning process [1-2]. Today`s society demands the development of complex capacities related with innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship that enable students to think and act in various fields of activity. For this objective, the active and collaborative learning methods are necessary and the Web 2.0 could become in an instrumental and strategical tool for this end.

In this work, the objective is the use of virtual teaching-learning methodologies focused in the collaborative work in order to generate knowledge and to stimulate technical and social skills of the student. This active teaching methodology was developed in all the subjects of the Materials Science area with the aim of enhance their appeal for student. Under this initiative, virtual tools use is promoted such as wikis, glossaries and social media (Facebook). All of them are Web 2.0 tools that encouraged the collaborative learning.

The wikis and spanish-english glossaries elaboration allowed the student to acquire the ability of share information and knowledge though the web, as any student can add, modify or complete information. Also, the students have acquired knowledge on a specific topic in a more flexible and opened way that promotes the autonomous work of the students adding major control in their own learning process.

In addition, as the social media are ideal platforms for exchange information, and they are used for interaction and collaboration between users, the social media tool Facebook was used for the promotion of the self-employment and the entrepreneurial initiative among students.

As conclusion, the use of different tools of the Web 2.0 such as glossaries, wikis and Facebook in this work has showed that the learning process become more attractive. These tools allow the students to obtain knowledge about the contents of the subjects by themselves (glossaries and wikis). At the same time, the use of Facebook has promoted the entrepreneurial spirit. Finally, the use of these virtual learning strategies was useful for the technical skills development while the interaction between them improved their social skills development.

References:
[1] Perales MJ, Jornet J, González-Such J. Policy trends in training and evaluation of teachers in Higher Education in Spain. Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa, 7(2e), 53-64, (2014).
[2] Marquès P. (2007). La Web 2.0 y sus aplicaciones didácticas. In internet://www.peremarques.net/web20.htm.

Keywords:

Web 2.0, glossaries, wikis, facebook.