Mobile devices applied to Computer Science subjects to consume institutional functionalities through a personal learning environment

Abstract

The application of Information and Communication Technologies to learning and teaching processes has caused several effects, such as the emergence of new educational software systems or the use of different technologies to carry out educational activities. One of the most popular trends on this sense is the use of mobile devices to learn, in which is known as mLearning. It facilitates the participation and the interaction of students anywhere and anytime through such kind of devices. However mLearning should not be considered as a replacement of eLearning (understood as the Internet application to learning). It supports eLearning; therefore it should take into account the existing eLearning landscape. This implies that it is necessary to take into account the application of 2.0 Web tools, which enables an online implementation of the student-centred learning paradigm, where the learner happens to have a more central role in her training. This, joined to the necessity to take into account the learning obtained not only in the institutions, leads to definition of the Personal Learning Environments that need to coexist with the traditional learning platforms, the Learning Management Systems. So, in this case mobile learning should facilitate the use of mobile devices to support these two learning ecosystems. To do so, this paper describes a service-based framework approach to implement a mobile Personal Learning Environment, which allows the integration of functionalities from the institutional learning platforms. With such system the learner can combine institutional tools with others she use to learn in a mobile system and reflect the activity carried out on them into the institutional side. This system is implemented and validated through its application into a Computer Science subject. The paper will show the difficulty of such application and some of its benefits such as the increase of student motivation and participation because of the use of the PLE and the mobile tools.