Abstract:

Among the objectives of the Common European Space in Higher Education (CSHE), autonomous learning for students is strongly promoted. This aim involves developing adequate resources like platforms and contents. Most universities have covered the first requirement with the development of virtual learning environments, many of them based on Moodle. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of the teachers to adapt existing contents to the autonomous learning of students.

In this sense, video tutorials for learning the use of technical tools offer many advantages over classical teaching sessions based on lectures. Thus, students can use resources whenever they wish and at any location, using Internet, a CD or DVD or even an iPod-like multimedia mobile device. Moreover, the learning pace can be set by the students, as the video can be stopped to implement a technique demonstrated or it can be moved backwards to reinforce some detail. Finally, the learning of the student does not depend on the mood of the teacher, which could affect learning sessions.

Our proposal consists in creating a series of presentations based on video-tutorials for learning content creation tools in the field of multimedia. The proposed video tutorials try to teach by using examples that include all the necessary information. Each of these video tutorials will have an approximate length of 5 minutes, since longer examples could be difficult to follow by the students. The teaching of technical content is particularly suitable to be addressed with technology tools. As a consequence, video tutorials are developed as a great tool for learning technical concepts to students with little or no experience on these issues.

Keywords:

Autonomous learning, distance education, e-learning, video tutorials, teaching tools.