Abstract:

This article addresses the issue of why applications and websites have become essential for university students, but also the way in which each tool achieves its objective and how different types of digital content adapt better for different areas of study, here the case that is working is the subject of Probability and Statistics, because it needs a digital content that can be easy to understand, that can be available at all times to resolve questions and contain easy access to those fundamental concepts that allow continuous practice without stress.

Mathematics is a science that is supported by axioms and follows logical reasoning, probability and statistic are mathematical disciplines with applications that seek the study of probabilistic and random phenomena. The main difficulties in the study of probability and statistics are incorrect data interpretation, misunderstanding about the goal of the study, and misinterpretation of the terminology. Nowadays, self-learning using apps and web sites have become very important. Self-learning relevance is such that eight from 10 students use digital media to improve their knowledge or even learn an unknown specific topic into fundamental knowledge such as this probability and statistics area.

Several studies show that at least in the university student, the lectures with the lowest academic achievement and higher academic failure rate are the mathematics area. The learning is usually memorizing and very focused on the algebraic part, with the detriment of the conceptual part. In order to achieve an in-depth understanding of the concept that the student is learning, it is required to search, know, and develop innovative teaching-learning strategies to diminish these deficiencies.

The present document analyses the impact of different digital media into the probability and statistics learning process. Besides, it is discussed the virtual platforms effect in self-learning and their relevance as teaching support.

A survey was applied to eighty-one undergraduate students in a mathematics course of Computer Systems studies at Escuela Superior de Cómputo, which belongs to Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City.

The survey provides information about how the selected sample of students perceives the educational platforms and if they consider that this kind of tools helps to improve the learning of mathematics.

According to the results of the first three questions, almost ninety-seven percent had between eighteen and twenty-nine years old, less than eighty-four percent are current students, and eighty-one percent of the participants had taken at least one online course.

Seventy percent of the students had used some online-platform or web site to improve or help their learning process, and they considered it useful. Within the platforms or web sites that they have used, we can find YouTube Moodle, Coursera, Udemy, among others.

YouTube is a platform that has the most extensive content of all of these topics, and it is free. On the other hand, Udemy is a platform that has digital media with better quality, and It is a platform developed with an educative approach based on videos; however, most of their courses are not free. In the last years, thanks to platforms like YouTube and Udemy, it has proliferated a learning and study modality that responds directly to the technological era.

In the case of the use of the virtual classroom, Moodle is a platform also focused on education.

Keywords:

Online digital Platforms, probability, education, college, websites.