Resumen de M-learning and e-learning interactive applications to enhance the teaching: learning process in optical communications courses
Noemí Merayo Álvarez, Patricia Prieto, Ramón J. Durán Barroso, Juan Carlos Aguado Manzano, Patricia Fernández Reguero, Ignacio de Miguel Jiménez, Rubén Mateo Lorenzo Toledo, Evaristo Abril Domingo
In this paper, we propose to enhance and speed-up the teaching–learning process in optical communication subjects bydesigning and implementing new e-learning and m-learning strategies and applications. The new educational scenariodemands a methodological renewal focused on the learning process and the acquisition of skills. In this way, telematic andinteractive tools can promote this change due to their flexibility and great development. As a consequence, students can beprovidedwith a set of powerfulsoftware tools that help themto increasetheir autonomyand their capacity to acquire skills.The range of tools that is nowadays available is enormous, but we have chosen strategies based on e-learning and m-learning applications in order to take advantage of the different strengths of the two approaches. First of all, we propose toprovide subjects with high flexibility by designing voice-guided tutorial videos of complex concepts and softwaresimulators used in lectures and laboratories. In particular, in this paper we focus on subjects from the opticalcommunications area, since this area is highly complex and it is a good scenario for the practical use of our proposal.The main objective is to promote a virtual access to optical communication experiments and simulations related tolaboratory subjects. However, these video-tutorials also look to be a powerful tool in lectures to explain fundamentalprinciples and physical phenomena better. On the other hand, we have designed a set of Android applications, since mobilelearning is an effective technique to transform and strengthen the traditional training and learning strategies. Theinvolvement of mobile devices in the learning process aims to improve the interaction of teachers with students and to beused as a complementary support to increase their capacity for work and their motivation out of class. In summary, thedevelopment and integration of these software techniques exhibit great advantages since they may speed-up some learningtasks and they can be used to enhance the quality of the teaching methodologies.
