Números Publicados > Volumen y Número

Title- Trends in Computers in Education

Abstract- The goal of this invited editorial is to introduce an IEEE-RITA special issue on trends in Computers in Education. The special issue integrates thoroughly revised and extended versions of five outstanding papers presented at the 16th International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE'14), held in La Rioja in November 2014.

Index Terms- Computers and Education, Educational System, Software Engineering, e-Learning Engineering, Educational Technology

Title- Assessment experiences of the representation techniques of greedy programs: Application to the GreedEx Tool.

Abstract- The use of several representation techniques of algorithms, of either a textual or a graphical nature, is common in systems supporting learning of programming. The GreedEx tool, a system for interactive experimentation with greedy algorithms, incorporates some of them. This system has been evaluated several times, using questionnaires of subjective perception as the main technique to gather data. This paper describes two empirical evaluations conducted with the aim of assessing the usefulness and/or complexity of the representation techniques supported by GreedEx. In this analysis we combine several sources of information: subjective perception questionnaires and the metrics provided by an eye-tracking device.

Index Terms- Programming learning, empirical evaluation, eye tracking, motivation.

Title- Adaptive Questionnaires Improvement Process: Implementation and Early Experiences with e-valUAM.

Abstract- Adaptive questionnaires allow identifying the most appropriate question at a particular moment during an evaluation process. There are several approaches to implement adaptive questionnaires, but not many to ensure their quality. This article shows a procedure to improve the adaptive questionnaires quality by considering the relevance of each question. So, a level is associated to each question, which allows analysing the students' answers in order to identify how to improve the evaluation process. The proposed method has been implemented in e-valUAM that allows building adaptive questionnaires and has enabled carrying out the first experiments to validate the approach.

Index Terms- e-Learning, Adaptive Systems, Computer aided instruction, Qualifications.

Title- Usalpharma: a software architecture supporting learning in Virtual Worlds.

Abstract- This paper explains how was planned, designed and implemented a software architecture that helps the support of eLearning activities within a virtual laboratory inside the Second Life Virtual World. It delves into the problems related to this kind of systems and architectures and what are the possible benefits they could provide to eLearning processes. The paper shows how are applied the software engineering principles and procedures in order to solve problems like data gathering from Virtual Worlds, data analytics of information related to interaction between an user and a 3D environment, and how them can be applied to enhance the students' learning process and teachers' assessment of this learning process. Also the paper shows the software product resulting of this engineering process, as well as the outcomes from the application of the reached solution in a real context during two courses involving postgraduate students and subjects of Pharmacy and Quality Assurance. To end the paper, authors explain some considerations and knowledge retrieved after this experience, focusing in the utility from the learning point of view, innovation and possible future work that could be done to improve the solution implemented.

Index Terms- Software Architectures, Virtual Worlds, Technology Enhanced Learning, Usage analytics

Title- A system to manage unofficial university activities

Abstract- In addition to official courses at the university, also there are other unofficial activities such as seminars, workshops and conferences. In general, there is not an institutional support for managing these activities, so that the organizers are responsible for such a management. The management activity is costly in time. In this paper, we describe a system developed in the Computer Science School at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, whose goal is to facilitate the management and organization of these activities in order to free the organizers of some of these tasks. Furthermore, the paper describes a case of application of the system developed at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, in the context of the "Zaragoza Linguistics" series of seminars and cultural diffusion.

Index Terms- Computers and Education, Educational System, Educational technology, e-Learning Engineering.

Title- Influence of Pedagogic Approach and Learning Styles on Computing Students’ Motivation and Educational Efficiency.

Abstract- The classic didactic approach that has been applied in the classroom for learning algorithms focuses on the use of lectures combined with practical exercises. In our approach we proposed a novel way for learning algorithms through interactive and collaborative experimentation. Furthermore, as far as we know, there are no existing studies that analyze the relationships that these approaches may have on the three key components in the learning process: the student's learning style, motivation during the learning process and educational efficiency. In this paper, we present an experiment carried out in the classroom for learning greedy algorithms which studies these components on the two didactic approaches: the first one based on active teaching methodology and these condone in traditional teaching method.

Index Terms- Learning styles, Felder-Silverman model, educational eficiency, motivation