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Real Collaborative Environments Using Technologies Based on Mobile Devices and Internet Tools

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Conference

2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Indianapolis, Indiana

Publication Date

June 15, 2014

Start Date

June 15, 2014

End Date

June 18, 2014

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Ocean and Marine Division Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Ocean and Marine

Page Count

13

Page Numbers

24.1029.1 - 24.1029.13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--22962

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/22962

Download Count

376

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Paper Authors

biography

Carlos Efrén Mora La Laguna University

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Carlos E. Mora is professor of the Maritime Engineering Department at La Laguna University located in Tenerife (Spain). He obtained a master's degree in Marine Engineering and has been teaching since 2004. His research interests include the use of ITs and mobile devices in engineering education, and other related technologies like augmented reality. He is also qualified as a consultant for the integration of Apple technologies in education, and working towards obtaining his PhD.

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biography

Jorge Martin-Gutierrez Universidad de La Laguna

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Dr. Jorge Martín-Gutiérrez is director of the Virtual Teaching Unit of University of La Laguna and Assistant Professor of Graphics Engineering. Jorge´s research has focused on improving spatial skills means augmented reality technology. His approach explores the use of information visualization tools to provide new methods of learning. Their interest is the development of teaching applications based on emerging technologies as well as motivation and usability studies focusing his work on developing computer applications.

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biography

Beatriz Añorbe-Diaz Universidad de La Laguna

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Professor at the University of La Laguna, Department of Organic Chemistry. With wide experience in theoretical and practical teaching of Chemistry for maritime engineerings.

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REYES CARRAU MELLADO Universidad La Laguna

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Antonio González Marrero University of La Laguna

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Abstract

Problem-based learning approach in marine engineering education using mobile devices and Internet toolsThe skills of Marine Engineering graduates should be strongly oriented to problem solving forsituations without external direct assistance. Marine professionals should also be able to take rightdecisions under difficult situations like emergencies. By the other way work-group and job planningis an every day requirement, specially when doing maintenance and reparation tasks. By contrastmarine technology has advanced quickly and knowledge recycling is a must on every shippingcompany, but operation and maintenance procedures have usually to be learnt on the go.During last decades, marine engineering students had not got immersed into a real challenge workenvironment until going onboard for the first time when finishing their studies. The adoption of aproblem-based learning is intended to solve this situation, so students will have a closer contactwith real decision-taking and auto-learning situations on earlier stages. We pretend to create moreengaging experiences and introduce our students into real collaborative environments usingtechnologies, specially those based on mobile devices and Internet tools.On a very first stage, we have planned experiences with first and third year marine engineeringstudents. On average, our first year students do not associate ITs and computers to learning usesdifferent than Internet searching and schoolwork authoring. By other hand, most of them are used toa traditional teacher-focused learning. Third year students are more used to ITs, but are notexperienced in collaborative online tools. They also have not previous experience in problem basedlearning like first year students.Our experiences are focused on two first semester subjects: Applied Chemistry (first year) andAutomation and Controls (third year). Both experiences use a similar procedure, but while the firstis restricted to only one specific experience with a randomly selected small group of students, thesecond shows a mayor turnaround as the experience has been extended to all students and subject’scurricula. Depending on how problem based learning is designed different behaviors are shown. Onfirst-year Applied Chemistry the experiences are restricted to two groups of students and oneconcept for each one. The first one worked on fluid density and the second studied fluid viscosity.There was a lack of motivation for both groups of students: by the first session about 50% ofstudents decided not to participate, even they were advised that they did not had any other optionsfor this part of the curricula on this subject. We have discovered an initial repulse by students moreused to a traditional deductive learning. We also think that the use of collaborative tools cancontribute to this effect, given the additional effort required by students to create initial work-groupdynamics. By contrast, a better behavior is shown after few weeks on third year students. In thiscase, it was not just an experience, but the whole subject was redesigned for a problem basedlearning approach. Only 10% of students did not participate on this experience, but was mostlycaused because of schedule issues. Some initial difficulties arose during the first weeks: lack ofcommunication between students, some conflicts between group members and the required quicklearning by students of the required tools during a short period of time (IT tools, collaborativesoftware and augmented reality technologies).By the end of this semester, we pretend to evaluate the students motivation and satisfactioncompared to their grading results. For this purpose we have designed a scoring rubric and quizzes inorder to have visible results for this experiences. This work will permit us to analyze the lack ofmotivation when introducing a partial problem based learning strategy compared to a fullimmersive planning. We also expect to obtain positive results and also information about thebehavior of this methodology and the corresponding impact on the graduates experiences onboard.

Mora, C. E., & Martin-Gutierrez, J., & Añorbe-Diaz, B., & MELLADO, R. C., & Marrero, A. G. (2014, June), Real Collaborative Environments Using Technologies Based on Mobile Devices and Internet Tools Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--22962

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