DIGITAL LIBRARY
IMPROVING THE TEACHING - LEARNING PROCESS USING EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS AS REUSABLE LEARNING OBJECTS (RLO) IN THE FIELD OF THERMAL ENGINEERING
University of Zaragoza (SPAIN)
About this paper:
Appears in: EDULEARN16 Proceedings
Publication year: 2016
Pages: 363-372
ISBN: 978-84-608-8860-4
ISSN: 2340-1117
doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2016.1068
Conference name: 8th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies
Dates: 4-6 July, 2016
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Abstract:
The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is promoting the progressive integration of ICT in the field of university education, so that they can support and complement to traditional classroom teaching. In this context, new methods, based on the concept of Reusable Learning Objects (RLO), can be proposed in order to get the maximum benefit of these new technologies and ensure the quality of the teaching - learning process. A RLO can be defined as the smallest learning unit done in digital format with a pedagogical purpose, which is indivisible and independent and can be reused in different educational contexts.

Even though the Spanish Universities have differentlearning platforms for several years, which have become an essential teaching support, the use of educational videos is not widespread at this moment.

In this paper the main results of a teaching innovation project developed at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) during the 2015-16 academic yearare presented.Through this project, new modular and reusable learning objects as educational videos have been developedin order to improve theacquisition of specific skills and the achievement of learning outcomes in five subjects in the field of Thermal Engineering. These subjects are currently taught at the School of Engineering and Architecture in three different degree courses.
To facilitate reuse, together with each video a fact sheethas been developed including the subjects in which each video can be used, the related learning outcomes, the specific skills and other relevant information. On the other hand, different questionnaires have been created in order to quantitativelyassess the degree of satisfaction and improvement in the teaching-learning process achieved using the educational videos. Although initially the whole teaching innovation project has been implemented in the Moodle platform of the University of Zaragoza, it is expected to integrate these videos in the Open Courseware (OCW) platform of that University.

The results show that 89% of students surveyed have never been previously provided with educational videos in other subjects of their degree courses. In contrast to this situation, 81% of students said that they usually search and view on their ownon-line educational videos related to the subjects contents of their degree courses.In addition, most states that, between the different types of educational videos that can be used, they are especially interested in watching videos made by the teachers, where the contents of the subjects are explained.

Finally, more than half of the students believe that the viewing of educational videos has sufficiently or much motivated them to study thecontents. They all think that their learning process has improved sufficiently or much, and they consider very convenient the use of educational videos in other subjects of their degree courses.
Keywords:
Teaching innovation, learning objects, educational videos.