Edgardo J. Moreno

Reducing Digital Divide: adult oriented distance learning

The present paper shows the digital divide that exists among the communities that use ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in their everyday lives, including access to local government web sites, and those that have total ignorance of the subject. A survey regarding information technology knowledge was performed in several communities with very different sociocultural characteristics. The results of the survey, from a technological scope, show the width of the technologic gap that separates those communities. Being aware of this digital divide, this research shows the results of the implementation of a strategy that allows deprived citizens, who live in the border zones, to reach information technology knowledge. This strategy includes face learning, distance learning, the use of massive communication media, practice in national universitys computer labs and, theory and practice exams.

Building didactic applications for the teaching of practical content in a virtual campus

Distance teaching becomes a tough task when its goal is to explain topics with high practical contents because it is necessary for the student to have the teachers guidance in order to understand the steps and method to solve a particular problem. On the other hand, theoretical contents adapt themselves more easily to this methodology by the use of tools such as text with hyperlinks, synoptic charts, etc. This paper demonstrates a solution that facilitates the virtual teaching of practical contents by the use of multimedia material specially designed to fulfill this task. This material not only allows the student to learn the practical contents, but also provides him with an overview method and several ways of automatically checking his knowledge and comprehension of content.