IEEE Revista Iberoamericana de Tecnologias del Aprendizaje

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»

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»

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»

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 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»

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»

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 presents the results of applying an educational data mining approach to model academic attrition (loss of academic status) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Two data mining models were defined to analyze the academic and nonacademic data; the models use two classification techniques, naïve Bayes and a decision tree classifier, in order to acquire a better understanding of the att... 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»

Multi-agency crisis management represents one of the most complex real-world situations, requiring rapid negotiation and decision-making under extreme pressure. However, the training provided to Gold Commanders (strategic planners) typically lacks the stress of a real crisis, while research tells us that behavior and decision-making are significantly affected by stress. It is, therefore, vital tha... 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»

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»

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»

Literacy development is an essential process for special education needs children. Otherwise, they will have additional difficulties in their daily life activities and hence their social inclusion. It is a big challenge for parents and teachers, but it is easier if the process begins since childhood. In this paper, we present Tic@ula, a virtual repository for creating, centralizing, and sharing le... 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 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»

Peer assessment is a form of collaborative learning in which students evaluate learning products prepared by other students. We present the results of an analysis of the assessment of oral presentations by students. A group of students solves a problem, writes a document with the solution, and makes an oral presentation in class to other students. Another group assesses the written document and or... 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»

Interest in studying computer science has been extended to children. However, it is unclear which educational method should be used. Teachers need help to tackle this task. Therefore, this paper proposes using metaphors, such as recipe/program (and sequence), pantry/memory, and boxes/variables. It also illustrates the possibility of applying these metaphors to any resource available to the teacher... View full abstract»

In these days, much of the information published on the Web is published on social media, represented through social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, to name only the most prominent. Each of the media and social networks has its own scheme of operation and different working characteristics; for example, Twitter is a social network where millions of daily messages called tweets are exchanged. ... 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»

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»

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 proposes a producer-consumer model in order to develop in a collaborative manner a human-computer interaction (HCI) textbook with professionals in Latin America. The model is composed of services to support the collaborative production of and access to an HCI textbook. The model is presented as an alternative solution to mitigate the current problem of lack of academic contents in the d... View full abstract»

This paper presents the design and application of personalized formative self-assessment tests, in the framework of adaptive learning in virtual learning environments. The tests were customized taking into account the predominant learning styles in the groups and the knowledge level of the domain item. The experience compares two groups of university students, which belong to different semesters o... View full abstract»

Robotics has become a learning tool for multiple environments in ordinary school and after-school programs. This paper presents the perceptions of 127 teachers who teach educational robotics (ER) in Latin America and Spain at several preuniversity education levels. The studied dimensions were: 1) teacher profile; 2) technological resources; 3) learning activities; 4) environmental characteristics;... View full abstract»

The traditional teaching-learning processes used by Chilean universities are changing. This document describes two innovative strategies applied to teach software engineering (SE) at two universities in Chile. Teaching experiences are part of our ongoing effort to improve the current teaching-learning strategies of SE in the mentioned universities. In this paper, we describe our teaching experienc... View full abstract»

The aim of this paper is to introduce a model to cocreate and evaluate inclusive and accessible open educational resources (IA-OERs) toward the perspective of the IMS caliper analytics framework. The model was applied by 72 teachers of primary and secondary schools who cocreated and evaluated IA-OERs in the context of the validation phase of the inclusive learning project. The evaluation of the IA... View full abstract»

Video games can be considered constructivist instructional materials because of their potential to promote student-centered opportunities in the classroom. Since the emergence of this educational trend, called digital game-based learning, several studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect that learning or recreational video games have had on learners and on their mastery of learning object... View full abstract»

The application of the information and communication technologies to teaching and learning processes is linked to the development of new tools and services that can help students and teachers. Learning platforms are a clear example of this. They are very popular tools in eLearning contexts and provide different types of learning applications and services. In addition, these environments also regis... View full abstract»

The task of choosing an authoring tool for creating digital instructional materials is becoming complex, since the amount of possibilities is daily increasing. In this sense, this paper presents the development and the evaluation of an authoring tool taxonomy made in compliance with the ANSI/NISO Z39.19 international standard. The taxonomy was classified over 400 tools and was published on a Web s... View full abstract»

This paper discusses how Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) users learn and participate in cooperative environments that promote learning communities within external hypermedia environments, such as the social networks. In order to develop this paper, researchers analyzed the interaction of users enrolled in a course developed under the iMOOC platform, which is based on concepts like connectivism, ... 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»

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»

Remote laboratories are an emergent technological and pedagogical tool at all education levels, and their widespread use is an important part of their own improvement and evolution. This paper describes several issues encountered on laboratorial classes, on higher education courses, when using remote laboratories based on PXI systems, either using the VISIR system or an alternate in-house solution... View full abstract»

This paper presents the design of the didactic strategy modeling language (DSML) according to the principles of Physics of Notations (PoN). The DSML is a visual and activity-oriented language for learning design characterized by the representation of different activities according to the nature of the task. Once the language is designed, a blind interpretation study is conducted to validate the se... View full abstract»

This paper proposes to apply data mining techniques to predict school failure and dropout. We use real data on 670 middle-school students from Zacatecas, México, and employ white-box classification methods, such as induction rules and decision trees. Experiments attempt to improve their accuracy for predicting which students might fail or dropout by first, using all the available attributes; next,... View full abstract»

This paper aims to evaluate the Wiki tool on Moodle, according to student performance. Research was conducted with students who were using the virtual learning environment, in which they had engaged in the construction of a collaborative text, showing the importance/consequences of the use of information technologies and communication, in small and medium enterprises in the region of Sant'Ana do L... View full abstract»

The learning habits of a new generation of students, i.e., those growing up with cell phones, access to social media, and video games, are significantly different from the habits of the educators who are preparing them for the future workplace. The effectiveness of traditional lecture-based classrooms has been questioned by educators, parents, industry, and government. In the field of science, tec... View full abstract»

This paper is aimed at discussing several issues related to the teamwork generic competence, motivational profiles, and academic performance. In particular, we study the improvement of teamwork attitude, the predominant types of motivation in different contexts, and some correlations among these three components of the learning process. The above-mentioned aspects are of great importance. Currentl... View full abstract»

Introductory programming modules are challenging for both the lecturers and students. In previous works, the authors have introduced educational innovations to mitigate these challenges and facilitate learning. This paper presents a further step forward, proposing a learning process enriched with formative feedback. To this end, visual programming environments and educational robots are combined a... View full abstract»

In this paper, we describe the special challenges that educational games (also known as serious games) pose for online learning object (LO) repositories. As in all metadata, a tension exists between descriptive power and the effort needed to create these descriptions. This tension is even greater when describing complex, highly interactive multimedia content such as serious games. We consider seri... View full abstract»

Repositories of digital educational resources have reached a significant level of development and diversification in the last decade to the point of becoming a component in higher education transformation. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the studies about the use and adoption of repositories of digital educational resources. Some quantitative approaches mainly collect metrics rela... View full abstract»

The traditional teaching-learning processes used by Chilean universities are changing. This document describes two innovative strategies applied to teach software engineering (SE) at two universities in Chile. Teaching experiences are part of our ongoing effort to improve the current teaching-learning strategies of SE in the mentioned universities. In this paper, we describe our teaching experienc... View full abstract»

This paper intends to establish the relationship between the heritage content of mobile pedestrian navigation system-augmented reality application and learning processes through mobile devices. In this context, a teaching-learning process will be developed that is linked to urban heritage, determining the educational effectiveness with these tools. The methodological research focuses on two dimens... View full abstract»

One of the topics that generate interest in the community is the possibility of relating the characteristics of students with the type of material that best suits the student's learning style, interests, and preferences. This topic holds most importance in systems that perform automatic selection of materials and educational activities and thus improve usability. The main idea of this paper is dir... View full abstract»

As result of the discussions maintained at the panel session on Software Development for e-Learning of the third workshop on software engineering for e-Learning (ISELEAR'12), several points of view emerged regarding the conception, development, and maintenance of e-Learning solutions. This paper summarizes and confronts these points of view: 1) automated approaches; 2) combination of different met... View full abstract»

Social networks have become a new form of communication that allow students to share and collaborate. In this sense, they have joined forces with self-regulated learning (SRL) skills. This paper presents an experience at the University of Santiago de Compostela to analyze how SRL is developed in a course using a social network. This research used the following: 1) MSLQ questionnaire by Pintrich an... View full abstract»

Learning how to program in early age helps children to develop some capabilities as logical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. Incorporating robotics in programming children can help to learn in a concrete and funny way, collaborating with each other. The research project presented in this paper describes the first prototype that implements a programming environment for robots using mobile... View full abstract»