The application 2.0 tools through PLEs in Computer Science Education: the twitter experience

Abstract

Learners and teachers use different tools to carry out the learning activities. These instruments evolve and change, what means that learning activities are being influenced depending of the context that surrounds the educational processes. The Information and Communication Technologies application to teaching and learning processes implies a revolution regarding to the way learning and teaching is performed. However this model did not provide as many advantages as it were supposed to and a new change is necessary. Against this background rise web 2.0 tools and tendencies, which is another evolution on the way learners and teachers interact but those tools should be incorporated and adapted to the existing systems. This is not an easy task and means to take into account the users, the tools, the interoperability between learning tools, etc. Along this paper the problem of how to integrate 2.0 tools into institutional learning system is explored, specially focused on how through PLE and by using interoperability solutions it is possible to take advantage of 2.0 tools in learning and teaching processes. It is proposed a simply way to integrate such tools with the existing systems and an experience that demonstrate how to apply it. This experience is based on the use of twitter in a classroom. From that experience can be shown that the integration of 2.0 tools is not complex and improves students' participation and motivation, which could have associated a learning improvement. ; This work is partially supported by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade of Spain (project TSI-020302-2010-2), the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain (project TIN2010-21695-C02) and the Government of Castilla y León through the project GR47.