África López-Rey

Examples of distance learning projects in the European Community

The innovation brought by the introduction of new technologies in our modern society has also started to appear in education. The biggest efforts come from the institutions involved in distance education, partly due to the characteristics of the educational system they represent. In order to improve the technology development there are a large number of projects being developed inside the European Union. This paper discusses the current situation of distance learning and the technological resources available including e-mail, video conferencing, Internet and the World Wide Web and virtual teaching-learning environment. Some of the European Projects including new technologies in distance learning are also discussed.

The color of the light: A remote laboratory that uses a smart device that connects teachers and students

Technology surrounds us wherever we look, nonetheless it is necessary to facilitate its use in places where a greater public can enjoy, know and learn with it. Techno Museum and Go Lab projects are focused on this goal. As a first prototype to bring technology closer to young students and schools, UNED has developed a Arduino based smart device that facilitates the integration of remote laboratories in learning scenarios. Initially, the Arduino smart device was designed for robotics laboratories, but finally it was decided to expand it to other laboratories. The current prototype is called RGB led: “The color of the light” laboratory. This paper presents its use by teachers and their potential applications as a tool to bring technology to schools and young people who tomorrow will become engineers, scientists and curious citizens.

Simulation as an aided tool in the EE learning

Nowadays simulation has become one of the most used aided tools in all fields of science and technology in general. Professionals and researchers use it in their work as an essential tool. The analysis and design of actual systems, which are becoming increasingly complex, would be very complicated or impossible without simulation. So that, for the past five years the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (DIEEC) of the Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) have a research area of work which main objective is to promote the use of simulation as a tool to support the teaching of electronic engineering. Within this objective, guided exercises via simulation have been developed based on these principles. The project is also working on the application of multimedia tools within electronic engineering teaching allowing integrating it with simulation.

Campus Virtual de la UNED: un Ejemplo de Aplicación de Nuevas Tecnologías en la Educación a Distancia

The introduction of New Technologies in educational environments has promoted a real revolution. Virtual Campus involves a set of features that makes possible the interaction among different collectivities that belong to the University, but spatial and time independent. Virtual Campus project has been the continuance of a European Commision 4th Framework Programme project called DEMOS, which was born as UNED initiative in 1996. Virtual Campus integrates an educational environment where cooperation among teachers, tutors, experts and student is carried out in a very flexible way through multimedia tools.