IEEE Revista Iberoamericana de Tecnologias del Aprendizaje

This paper presents the research work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of technologists, educators, and entertainment experts from the University of Deusto to develop a serious game to practice generic skills in job-oriented education. This innovative serious game focuses on entrepreneurship skills and problem solving competences. Technology is a facilitator for a new teaching methodology... View full abstract»

The Robot@Factory competition was recently included in Robotica, the main Portuguese Robotics Competition. This robot competition takes place in an emulated factory plant, where automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) must cooperate to perform tasks. To accomplish their goals, the AGVs must deal with localization, navigation, scheduling, and cooperation problems that must be solved autonomously. This rob... View full abstract»

We developed a proposal of a usability evaluation by the experts of a learning management system (LMS). The instrument is designed on the basis of the general criteria for the heuristic evaluation proposed by Nielsen, as well as on international standards, guides, and recommendations for software quality (ISO 9241 and ISO 9126). We present the results from applying the usability evaluation instrum... View full abstract»

This paper describes a learning activity on computational thinking in ethics classroom with compulsory secondary school students (14-16 years old). It is based on the assumption that computational thinking (or better “logical thinking”) is applicable not only to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects but to any other field in education, and it is particularly suited for decisio... View full abstract»

The number of mobile phones and tablets has notably been raising in last few years, which allows to extend its potential applications. In the field of education, the possibilities offered by augmented reality are yet to be explored. The experience which is proposed in this paper pretends to implement QR codes in subject teaching belonging to an industrial engineering degree. In particular, changes... View full abstract»

This paper describes a project-based learning case example developed at the University of Lleida, Spain. This proposal was addressed to third-year engineering students and combines knowledge from computer vision and robotic control to complete an automation project task. The learning target was to develop a computer vision system that must detect a small object placed randomly on a target surface ... View full abstract»

This paper describes the experience during the execution of a project that applied the project-based learning (PBL) methodology for teaching an undergraduate course on image processing at the Universidad de los Llanos. During this project, the learners, the students of electronics engineering and computer science, were able to complement their lectures, process and manipulate images, and build the... View full abstract»

The global economic crisis makes it necessary to increase business competitiveness. Lean is a manufacturing philosophy that deserves the attention of employers and their employees, since its objectives are to increase productivity, reduce waste, and optimize available resources. The 5S method is a lean tool that can improve productivity by improving the organization of the workplace. A brief surve... View full abstract»

In the context of the European Higher Education Area, it is needed to propose new motivation ways to engage university students in lectures. Since they prefer the application of active methodologies rather than passive ones, and they enjoy the use of interactive devices, using technology in the classroom seems promising. Thus, this paper presents an experience conducted in four technical subjects ... View full abstract»

This paper describes the development of courses in the field of digital design that use Arduino boards as their main platforms. Arduino offers an intuitive development environment and multiple hardware and software resources that allow rapid development of microcontroller-based projects. However, due to the vast amount of information available, students were losing the capability to design their o... View full abstract»

This paper investigates the use of learning management systems as tools constituting student's personal learning environments in the degree of informatics applied to education in the National University of Chimborazo-Ecuador. The main result of this paper is that there is an increasing number of courses that rely on virtual classrooms, but learning occurs both in and out of these learning environm... View full abstract»

This paper presents innovations to stimulate the autonomy of engineering students by using different active methodologies. The strategies designed to address this problem are based on analyzing students’ learning styles and incorporating specific tools into teaching practice, such as “M-eRoDes,” which supports the automatic evaluation and feedback of concept maps created by them. Among the main fi... View full abstract»

A rapid control prototyping system for the MIC955 module of the feedback instruments is described. The system is supported on a computer with open source tools GNU Linux Fedora, Scilab/Scicos, and RTAI-Lab. The following are the phases of a control system design: 1) specifications: 2) modeling and identification; 3) analysis controller; 4) simulation; 5) implementation, and 6) verification in a de... View full abstract»

Computational thinking is a cognitive process that allows generating solutions to problems through the use of skills, such as abstraction, decomposition, and algorithmic design. This paper presents the proposal to evaluate computational thinking of new students to relate knowledge indicated in the subject methodology of programming and to offer an initial environment of learning. This paper descri... View full abstract»

The process of learning correct pronunciation can greatly benefit from the twin disciplines of information visualization (InfoVis) and human-computer interaction (HCI). HCI concerns with design, evaluation, and implementation for the ease of use of users, while InfoVis is responsible for representing multidimensional data in a specific information context. The two disciplines can, therefore, compl... View full abstract»

In this paper, we propose the utilization of augmented reality (AR) in a smart classroom (SaCI). The architecture of a SaCI has been proposed in a previous work, based on the paradigm of multi-agent systems. In this paper, we propose an agent that provides services of AR to display and design, among other things, augmented scenarios. In addition, we define an experimental real environment in SaCI ... View full abstract»

In order to properly address the issues of today's global world, the importance of engineering students acquiring leadership and professional skills has increased tremendously. In fact, leadership is one of the basic pillars for global economic development. By immersing oneself in an engineering organization or honor society, one learns to cultivate a team-work mentality that will be invaluable in... View full abstract»

More than ever, the economic globalization is creating the need to increase business competitiveness. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy oriented to the elimination of activities that do not create any type of value and are thus considered a waste. One of the main differences from other management philosophies is the shop-floor focus and the operators' involvement. Therefore, the traini... View full abstract»

This paper presents an experiment in which visual programming environments have been used in programming courses aiming at helping students to acquire the competencies of a course on object-oriented programming. This paper is centered on the analysis of the acceptance by the students of this type of environment, as well as its effect on the motivation of the students. The results obtained show dif... View full abstract»

Previous research studies have reported strong evidence that the emotional state of students may have a considerable impact on their learning. In this paper, we present an empirical study that evidences that it is possible to influence the user's affective state in a controlled way, by adapting the system's response. As part of this paper, we have analyzed the affective impact of varying the level... View full abstract»

This paper presents the analysis of recent research on mobile learning and usability areas, applying a systematic mapping study. The aim is to understand the tendencies and needs in the m-learning field. The results demonstrate that research in the area has grown significantly since 2013, and we identify a necessity when we see that not all the m-learning applications have used usability tests; we... View full abstract»

This paper contains an exploratory study on self-regulation by a group of students during a second-year computer programming course (data structures). Self-regulation was measured through the implementation of an instrument that evaluates motivation and learning strategies. From the results of the implementation, the relation between self-regulation and academic performance among the students was ... View full abstract»

This paper describes how an educational digital material supports the improvement of skills in the development of algorithms within math problems, which belong to a part of an operative computational thinking, in students of the subject logic programming. This paper reflects how students lack the fundamentals of math and the algorithmic thinking which is required to solve the problems established ... View full abstract»

Raspberry Pi has the capability of being configured as an access point and as a web server, so it can be used for creating applications reachable from mobile devices without needing an Internet connection. The proposal is based on the possibility for students to answer questionnaires from their mobile devices. The teacher can observe answers in real time. This solution adds dynamism integrating th... View full abstract»

Although several definitions of gamification can be found in the literature, they all have in common certain aspects: the application of strategies, models, dynamics, mechanics, and elements of the games in other contexts than games, and the objective of producing a playful experience that fosters motivation, involvement, and fun. In this paper, our approach gamifying the learning process of a sub... View full abstract»