HOW HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHERS ARE USING WEB TECHNOLOGY IN THEIR EDUCATION ACTIVITIES: A CASE STUDY

Internet technologies, mobile phone and social media have brought new challenges to higher education. E-learning has been gaining a huge acceptance among educators, specially in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This happens due to the exponential growth of the use of Internet and educational technologies that have fostered deep transformations in the teaching-learning process and paradigm.

Our institution began e-learning activities in 2003 with WebCT, but soon changed its approach with the adoption of the open source platform Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) and the integration of specialized staff to assist teachers and students on a daily basis. Since then, there is evidence that the b-learning model has been maturing the school’s educational culture, according to the teacher’s willingness or availability to integrate technology in the teaching-learning process.

However, it is important to know if the integration of web technology in the teaching-learning process is being combined with a shift in the pedagogical methodologies, and if teachers are taking full advantage of the capabilities offered by these learning environments and not using learning management systems as simple digital libraries for learning contents for students to download.

To answer those questions we present a case study that describes how teachers have been using web technology to support their learning/teaching activities. We discuss the results of a survey sent to 200 teachers and present an analyses made according to different points of view and criteria. Also, we compare personal use of technology to institutional use to perceive how teachers relate to these two very diverse, yet unique, universes, and whether they bring extend their technological experience to the use of e-learning platforms.

This analysis will focus on the technological and pedagogical achievements, but also on the challenges there are still to overcome and propose a set of good practices to support a more rewarding use of e-learning environments.