Online Tools for the Creation of Personal Learning Environments in Engineering Studies for Sustainable Learning

Abstract

This work describes an educational experience in which personal learning environments (PLEs) were created as a tool for the acquisition of subject contents in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. For this, the same methodology was developed for different subjects in order to teach the use of some digital tools, learn about the concepts related to the PLE, and apply the PLE to educational content promoting sustainable learning. Two questionnaires were designed to obtain information about the tools, activities, and subjects. The results of the questionnaires were analyzed using the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test and Pearson’s correlation. Then, several factors and the relationships between them were defined. In addition, this paper shows that because the PLE is based on a learning model in which the learner is the protagonist, its use is linked to sustainable learning. Therefore, the use of PLEs allows the development of the competences of “collaborative work” and “information management and organization”, which are both related to sustainable learning. In addition, the use of PLEs promotes understanding of the subjects and academic results in the subjects.

The Use of Personal Learning Environment to Support an Online Collaborative Strategy in Vocational Education Pedagogy Course

“…Over time, students began to recognize online repositories, and even in this study, the teacher emphasized using a large selection of online drives to store learning content. These results are relevant to the study of Rus-Casas et al (2021), which places the use of computer folders at the highest score, while online repositories such as Google Drive and others score below [31]. Google Drive is one of the tools included in the Google suite.…”

“…Other variables/aspects, including content repository, tools for creating content, reflection, profiles/portfolios, and collaboration, were explored using questionnaires. Instruments questionnaires use a Likert scale from previous researchers of Rus-Casas et al ( 2021) [31]. The tendency of each variable in students describe using univariable descriptive statistical analysis.…”

Bringing active learning, experimentation, and student‐created videos in engineering: A study about teaching electronics and physical computing integrating online and mobile learning

“…Under the plethora of information, students must investigate, select, organize, and share the information in their blogs, which in this case was difficult for some students in the courses. This result has been evidenced by other studies in the field of engineering, personal learning environments (PLEs), and content curation that illustrate how students could struggle with the skill of search and sense-making, that is, the skill to create content, adding value, and personalized them [1,4,64]. Similarly, the previous data suggest that the students of the first semester (Introduction to Electronics-2020-I) are more focused on the content and organization in their blogs and a little less on understanding and applying the concepts entailed.…”

Learning at the university through technology-mediated activities (El aprendizaje universitario a través de actividades mediadas por tecnologías)

“…The decline in PLEs that stem from this component can have an impact not only on digital competences (Hervás-Torres, 2020) but also on the mechanisms associated with this factor, such as the acquisition of assertiveness, capacity for consensus, dialogue, decision-making, etc. (Castañeda & Adell, 2013), which are key skills for employability, as well as for fostering self-regulated, sustainable (Rus-Casas et al, 2021) and lifelong learning (Yen et al, 2019).…”

“…El declive en el PLE producido por ese componente puede influir en las competencias digitales (Hervás-Torres, 2020) y en los mecanismos asociados con este factor, como la adquisición de asertividad, la capacidad de consenso, el diálogo, la toma de decisiones, etc. (Castañeda & Adell, 2013), habilidades clave para la empleabilidad y para fomentar un aprendizaje permanente (Yen et al, 2019) autónomo y sostenible (Rus-Casas et al, 2021).…”