Resumen de Use and impact of web 2.0 in higher education: Online education platforms

Eduardo Carlos Dittmar, David López Jiménez

• At the beginning, higher education used exclusively traditional teaching in physical classrooms. Today, it makes use of such training modality with other teaching means derived from new technologies, and the challenge of university education requires a modernization of the educational system, with new ways of teaching and learning. In this new environment, the incorporation of information and communication technologies into all areas of university-level studies is fundamental for the training of students. As we know, Internet has been a social revolution in many orders of life, and the Web 2.0 has given rise to a suggestive list of instruments that can be used for educational purposes. We refer, among others, to blogs, wikis, social networks and virtual forums. In fact, there are virtual spaces that can be developed much better in the e-learning environment due to their advantages, such as the originality, the quality of the images, the interactivity, and the high student immersion in the contents or the interaction with other students. Hence, there are every day more public and private institutions that, because of these inherent advantages, suggest the need to implement information and communication technologies for university teaching. In our study we analyze whether students use online education platforms as a very useful tool for acquiring and improving knowledge. A conclusive study will be carried out to a representative sample, and it will consist of a series of questionnaires that will serve as a primary information source.