Francesc Santanach

Free technology academy: a European initiative for distance education about free software and open standards

More and more people and organisations embrace Free Software (FS) and Open Standards (OS). However a lack of knowledge holds back their massive adoption. The Free Technology Academy will address this by setting up a virtual campus offering course modules on these topics to become a showcase of a virtual campus based on FS, OS and the use of Open Educational Resources. This distance learning programme will enable IT professionals, students, teachers and decision makers to upgrade knowledge and acquire relevant skills on free technologies. The FTA is realised by an international consortium and welcomes other interested parties to join the network.

CodeLab: Designing a Conversation-Based Educational Tool for Learning to Code

This work presents the design and architecture of an educational tool for learning to code. The CodeLab tool is based on skill practice and assessment and is targeted for non-STEM students to develop computational thinking. The tool is designed to provide a lab experience and environment based on exercises to practice through a conversational interface.

Present@: A virtual environment for dissertation defense

At the end of their technical studies, students have to present a final project in order to finish their degree. With this project, students prove that they have got all of the competences they should have acquired. Some competencies, such as the ability to communicate orally or the ability to argue may be evaluated during a face-to-face dissertation defense, but how to translate this evaluation scenario to a virtual environment is a challenge. This paper faces the problem of presenting dissertations in a virtual environment, to evaluate the aforementioned competences. The solution proposed, called Present@, is focused in teaching and technical dimensions, and is complemented with some materials and tutorials that help students to acquire those competences. Therefore, the paper shows Present@ as a solution to the problems that virtual universities have to face when dealing with the evaluation of final degree projects and particularly in their defense. Present@ has been tested over 131 students during six semesters and the results show that it actually helps students to acquire the desired competences in virtual environments. In addition, the analysis about the use of the tool has denoted that videos are an efficient mechanism to evaluate the ability to communicate of students and to work on transversal competencies. Some students also commented that the use of videos make the dissertation defense more natural and closer to face-to-face environments.

An Open and Service-Oriented Architecture to Support the Automation of Learning Scenarios

The specifications of automated learning scenarios can lead to advantages for virtual learning environments and important benefits for organizations, although research in this e-learning area has not addressed this issue. To achieve this goal, one requirement is to have an infrastructure able to support the execution of specifications of learning scenarios. This paper presents an open service-oriented architecture based on the Open Services Interface Definition OSID specifications proposed by the Open Knowledge Initiative OKI and other normative specifications. The architecture is used as a technological infrastructure in a virtual learning environment with more than 40,000 students enrolled and has been tested as the infrastructure of a tool to automate specifications of learning scenarios. A case study has been used to test the suitability of the architecture and describe such a tool for the future.