Abstract:

In recent years there has been growing interest in an emancipatory perspective of the pedagogical act, which supports the empowerment of the student as a process of awareness of their capabilities and potential. In this paper, Computer-Supported Collaborative learning is validated to empower engineering students with connections among different subjects.

We conducted a study in the Spring of 2018 and 2019 Spanish electronic engineering (Industrial Engineering, and Audiovisual Telematics Engineering) students worked together in small teams to design and implement projects on Digital Electronic Systems, resolve problems and work together in gamification exercises. Moreover, we applied new methodologies to connect previous subject related to computer science, computer architecture and electronics to the present subject. We incorporate new phases and terms to CSCL to use in teams among engineering students to improve their qualifications and engineering skills, integrating previous knowledge to develop interdisciplinary solutions to real-world problems and work in diverse and multisite teams. Each team had to face a problem statement, design a solution, simulate the solution using appropriate software and prepares a report.

In the first phase, the students have to follow 1 notebook to fill a form with exercises. This notebook has different tasks and blocks that must be solved related to digital design and implementation using Xilinx ISE IDE to design, simulate and implement digital proposals in a FPGA. At the end of this phase, they need to present a digital project with discrete components (little calculator, bitable and decoders).

In the second phase, the students have to follow 3 different notebooks (introduction, hardware components and examples of projects). Each notebook has different tasks and blocks that must be solved related to digital design and implementation applied to home appliances or control systems. They also learnt Arduino programming and the use of the Autodesk Tinkercad Circuits simulator and Arduino IDE to design and implement those digital projects.

The third phase is oriented to developing the final project. The team members designed their solution collaboratively using the simulator and then implemented it in hardware. The students finally implemented their solution using scales models and open hardware (based on Xilinx, Arduino or boths). The instructors and students collaborated in class, laboratories, through e-mail, file sharing and video conferencing during the study. At the end of this phase, the teams showed both simulations and hardware implementation of the project in oral presentations. The other students and teams have access to a form to evaluate the different projects of the different teams. The questions can be posed by the instructors and by the other teams. The two teams with more points could have an extra evaluation in the project evaluation.

After each phase, the teams need to assists gamification sessions to evaluate their progress. Moreover, this session are designed as preparatory of the final exams. An evaluation has been made of both the student's and the teacher's experience. The results show that the students had no problems in using the tools and in communicating with teammates, and that they had a generally positive learning experience. This resulted in greater motivation to follow the course and to improve the average grade of the course.

Keywords:

Arduino, FPGAs, Collaborative Learning, Open Source, Bolognia, design, simulate, digital systems.