Abstract:

EuLES is an interdisciplinary network for educational research in higher education. The goals of EuLES are the promotion of interaction and cooperation, the transfer of knowledge and technology, and the exchange of experiences and resources among its members and the education community, in relation with the learning environments in higher education. All of this is combined with the latest technology trends: e-learning, b-learning, m-learning, Web 2.0 and the concept of ubiquity, which allows to implement the teaching-learning process at any time, place and situation.

This work presents a new activity of the EuLES network that exploits the educational potential of social networks from an innovative and integrative perspective. Social networks are very suited tools for an agile and immediate communication, as well as one of the most common tools that students use to be connected to each other.

In this work, the social network that will be used is Twitter, in conjunction with the author’s institution online platform to host the media contents. The methodology consists in presenting a set of motivating questions, condensed in the 140 characters allowed by Twitter, on topics related to scientific-technical concepts of daily life that present a challenge to the reader. Every tweet will then provide a link to the website of the EuLES network, where a set educational pills will have been hosted to answer, broaden and contextualize the information related to the question.

In most cases, the media contents have been generated to link with the main concepts of the different courses taught by members of the EuLES network, aiming to provide a higher motivation for the courses by linking the contents to real and novel applications. They are classified into thematic areas and, sometimes, they are accompanied by extra audiovisual materials and links to relevant websites or blogs on science divulgation.

Among the advantages brought by these 2.0 tools, we can highlight that the contents are accessible at any time and place, and as many times as needed, and that they are compatible with a ubiquitous learning in the emerging learning scenarios. Because of this, social networks are a privileged tool to achieve learning autonomy and the interchange of experiences.

Keywords:

Social networks, educational pills, ubiquitous learning.