Abstract:

In today’s society a set of economic and social transformations have taken place, among which the introduction of new technologies of information and communication (TIC) has been relevant in all aspects of life, included the university studies.

The Universities have widened their virtual fields –with e-learning or b-learning systems-; accepting the challenge of managing the formative environments that respond to the interests and demands of each place and historical moment.

In this paper are presented part of the results of a research carried out in the frame of RED ILUMNO (Network of Latin American Universities) that had as theme the use of the technological platform EPIC in the university studies. The main question referred to which are the learning experiences that students have when they use the different resources such as readings, videos, self-assessments, forums, practical works, among others, disposed in the virtual platform. The online system supposes a learning process that is mediated by computers, characteristic that requires a descriptive study of the journey that students do, identifying different experiences and usages of the learning objects. The research design was a mixed one. The techniques used for data collection were: survey questionnaires, on-site or virtual interviews, monitoring of gradebooks. In this opportunity, we deal with part of the quantitative results built on the base of the questionnaires (with coverage of 20% of the total population) administered to freshmen students of Management studies, in three Universities: Universidad Siglo 21, in Argentina; Universidad del Itsmo, in Panama; and Centro Universitario Jorge Amado, in Brazil. The analysis offers descriptive aspects of the population and the assessments given (Lickert scale) to the experiences they had in the learning process based on the type of use students do of the virtual resources. As main results we can mention: the most positive valuation (average of 95%) of the virtual studies is justified by its availability and flexible hours associated to the self-management of time and pace of study. The majority of students -93% of the population- express high conformity with the online system. In line with the above, nine out of ten students mention to be enthusiastic and enjoy when they study in the virtual platform. However, there are a significant number of students that mention to feel lonely and isolated. Regarding the use of the resources, it was found that the readings, the practical works and self-assessments were considered the most valuable objects due to its direct relation with the process of accreditation of the subjects.

The access to non-graded objects is scarce, giving low value to them according to the learning processes. The forums are considered valuable, but for the majority of students, it doesn’t cover the objective of debate and collaborative activities. One can ask about the incidence that these aspects have in the education of students and the possible new ways of pedagogical-didactic intervention that could be designed from the Universities to improve formative processes in virtual environments.

Keywords:

University, e-learning, students.