TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF AN ENGINEER'S SCHOOL

• Autor(a) principal: Jaime E. Villate
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Outros Autores: Bertil P. Marques, Carlos Vaz Carvalho
• Tipo de documento: Livro
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/126219

Despite having distinct approaches to Internet, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), adults and youngsters are both actors of an active social process of learning in schools, where a changing attitude is urging. Unfortunately, schools have problems in using technology on their own benefit and in involving students in interesting learning activities. Additionally, teachers are uncomfortable when using technology, specially knowing their students are digital natives. So how can we alter this scenario in order to use technology on behalf of the learning process? The pressure to use technologies for learning emerged also from the implementation of the Bologna Declaration, which aims to harmonize the structures of Higher Education (HE). Its goal is to increase the competitiveness of the European HE system and to promote the mobility and employability of all the graduates. It is also intended that teachers monitor and contribute to the progress of technology by creating new learning environments. Following these objectives, on this article our research hypothesis is based on the premise that technology should be adapted to education, instead of the opposite, in order to reach higher levels of effectiveness. Moreover, if the use of technology is not reflected in the change of educational procedures, the real influence on learning results is to be questioned. We believe that a change from the traditional education system to a model based on Web technologies implies adaptation and a willingness to implement these alterations within teaching procedures. Within the new generation of Web applications, there are a few which are shared on the same platform. They represent a new level of interaction that facilitates collaboration and information sharing. They provide resources in different formats, like text, video and audio, links to sites, notices to students; and they ease student/teacher interaction through communication tools, which support collaborative learning and registration activities. Those platforms, in general, have been used in blended-Learning (b-Learning) or as a support to face-to-face education in HE. This article analyses the current ICT usage in the context of HE, according to recent changes in the information society. In particular, it focuses on the adoption of online learning platforms and their impact in the teaching-learning model in HE, having as an example the integration of the MOODLE platform at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP). It was found that there is a low rate of adherence to that online teaching platform, even when used as a repository of information; also, there is a great reluctance to use the platform for b-Learning settings.