Abstract:

The Communication and Information Technologies (ITC) are one of the many components of the personal learning environment (PLE). These tools have been gaining importance, especially the ones related to the Web 2.0, which allow the users a more active role in the search of information, the creation of new contents when sharing this information to other people. The concept PLE is not only related to the tools, but also the activities and connections that a person uses to improve learning skills. (Adell y Castañeda, 2010), transforming the digital skills in an allied for the development of PLE.

The objective of the present work is to analyze the PLE of the education senior students in careers related to the Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE) from the Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica). From an analytical empirical paradigm, specifically an ex post facto and transversal design (Hernández, Fernández y Baptista, 2014). The data is collected with an ad hoc questionnaire composed of different blocks, that measures the general aspects, for example, the previous training in technology, as well as each of the components extracted from the theoretical construct that defines the PLE (Castañeda y Adell, 2013). The final sample (n=381) was selected in a probabilistic manner by strata, considering each academic unit belonging to the CIDE as a stratum.

The PLE remains defined by each person according to their interests (Meza, Morales y Flores, 2016), however, he results show how those of the collective object of this study are poorly developed. The students show a high ignorance of certain tools, especially web 2.0. When looking for information, the student uses generic resources, which does not allow them to manage and retrieve information quickly and easily. It is observed how the most used tools to generate content are desktop, limiting the possibilities offered by web 2.0, coinciding with other research (Rahim, Berg & Veen, 2012, García-Martínez y González-Sanmamed, 2017), showing few skills in the use of technological resources.

The findings show how the student generates activities related especially to the search for information and organization of the same, coinciding with the findings of Sahin y Uluyol (2016) by indicating that the study environments are especially focused on the recovery of information and not so much in the creation of content. Equally, it can be observed as social networks. This finding may influence poorly developed PLE (Marín et al., 2014), since they are nourished with collaborative learning, especially with staff learning network (PLN).

Keywords:

Education, Information and Communication Technology, technological skills, personal learning environments.