THE USE OF ICT AS TOOLS OF SUPPORT FOR THE STUDENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA (EHEA)

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have irrupted in multiple aspects of university education. In few years, new concepts such as knowledge transmission, virtual tutoring or continuous assessment have been developed.

This paper presents an innovation project in the University of Cadiz. We are using some of the main tools that promote teaching innovation and teaching-learning process followed in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The experience is framed at the subject “Economics of the Public Sector”, in the Public Administration and Management Degree of the academic year 2011 / 2012.

The main objective is the improvement of the quality of education using ICT, allowing its adaptation to the EHEA. This innovation is based on a change in the learning strategy of the students, since they reinforce their knowledge acquired in class. Their learning progress will be guided and evaluated through various virtual activities that combine the dynamism and attractiveness of virtual resources and a theoretical and didactic basis. In this way, the tools are: videos representing the most difficult graphics (created by i-Spring), websites that encourage the student to research on a topic of study (Webquests), crosswords of basic concepts, exercises to complete gaps, short questions (using Hot Potatoes), test or questionnaires, and so on. The basic tool is the Virtual Campus under the Moodle platform.

Thus, in the philosophy of the EHEA in which the student is the leading role of their learning process, it is intended that the teacher will act as a guide. Similar experiments have shown that bachelor students progressively develop these abilities. Therefore, it is necessary to start from first year students and deal with this type of exercises in order to obtain good results in the student progress.