In general, we can say that the educational materials developed in this work have improved the quality of the e-learning of the subject of Optoelectronics, both of the conceptual content through the use of concept maps, and of the procedural content through instructional videos, computer simulations, and virtual laboratories.
The concept maps developed have been validated by comparison with traditional teachingfollowing an experimental design with a control group and an experimental group
(Martínez et al., 2010a; Pérez et al., 2010a, 2010b; Suero et al., 2010). A test of knowledge was applied to determine the learning actually achieved by the students of the two groups. The results showed that the concept maps that were constructed had been an effective teaching tool in physics teaching in general, since they helped the students to learn meaningfully the concepts of the topic under study, constituting a useful cognitive strategy for acquiring information in a structured form, and for discovering the meaning of the concepts that were being learnt.
The instructional videos and virtual laboratories mounted on e-learning platforms have been validated through an experimental design with two control groups of students and one experimental group (Martínez et al., 2010b, 2011). The results of different post-tests of knowledge showed these teaching materials to be effective teaching tools in enhancing students' learning. For Optoelectronics in particular, the application of our teaching methodology contributed a clear improvement over the conventional system of teaching the topic. The purpose of using this type of material is their application to e-learning platforms as complements to traditional teaching, and not as replacements for real laboratories where such laboratories are available. Nonetheless, when a real laboratory is unavailable or inaccessible, such materials can of course be very useful indeed. We believe that their ideal use is as a teaching resource that can be used for pre-practical and post-practical study, allowing the acquisition of knowledge to be more efficient. But again, in sum we conclude that, to enhance our students' learning it is important to integrate these materials as complementary methods added to those used in traditional teaching.
With respect to the computer simulations that were developed and implemented in this work, we have demonstrated with our students that this type of computer simulation which we call "hyper-realistic" represents reality with a realism far above that of the usual simulations (Pérez et al., 2011). Specifically, we validated the educational effectiveness of the hyper-realistic virtual environment that we implemented with an experimental design that included a control group of students and an experimental group. The results of the different evaluation tests showed that our simulations resolve some of the weaknesses of the usual computer simulations, such as those deriving from their simplicity and lack of realism of the graphical environment viewed by the student. These simulations offer the student the opportunity to perform Optics practicals at any time. This obviates the problem typical of eminently practical subjects in that the individual work required of the student is usually limited to mere theoretical studies, since the student lacks the appropriate material for additional practice outside the laboratory. Appropriately designed hyper-realistic computer simulations are highly effective teaching tools in certain educational contexts, for example, on e-learning platforms.
The work and the materials that it generated have been and are being used both by our Engineering and Physical Sciences undergraduate students and by our students of various official Master Degree courses that we teach on Physics Education. In addition, teachers of several Latin American universities have told us they are also using them with their students.
We believe that the teaching material we have developed and the form of using it are transferable to other subjects and innovation projects at the university level, which would facilitate future proposals for the use of our materials in other subjects different from those dealt with in this work. Now we have started working on the generation of the videos and simulations described in this work using Stereoscopic-3D technology. To generate photorealistic three-dimensional simulations we are using technology based on ray tracing combined with 3D display technology.
- 1366 reads
