Informational literacy and the use of technologies by Secondary Education students in Spain: A descriptive study. The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), together with their application to research carried out on educational areas, are factors which contribute to the promotion of a new educative model constructed on literacy-based competences and skills, and which sets technologies as essential tools for a life-long learning process (Unesco, 2005). This is the framework where we can insert the research that we are currently carrying out, funded by the research Program I+D+I of the Spanish Ministry of Education, and in the frame of which we are developing a diagnostic assessment of informational literacy competence in students between 14 and 16 years (Secondary Education), based on the fact that one of the main aspects in knowledge generation and acquisition is the capacity to use information extracted from documents and electronic resources, available in informational networks in a correct way. In this paper we present the results obtained from evidences on the contrast existing between the level of use of technologies (videogames, social networks...) and the level of informational literacy shown by students. The data were gathered from a sample of more than 1000 Secondary Education students who are around 15 years old.
University education is nowadays facing the need to rethink teaching processes carried out, to accommodate them to new understandings about how the human beings learn, also transcending the use, access and appropriation of a methodology adapted to changing times where, no doubt, mobile devices have a leading role. Besides their obvious communicative and playful function, teachers and learners must be aware of the pedagogical potential of these devices that can become allies in educational processes. This study analyzes the perception of university students, enrolled in the Pre-Primary and Primary Teacher Training Degrees at the University of Salamanca (Spain), about the use of mobile devices as tools to assist the learning process and as gadgets to practice and boost the learning process carried out in the classroom. Relevant outcomes have been extracted from the inspection of the data obtained through a survey to students, what has enabled us to draw interesting conclusions about the opinion of students about the inclusion of mobile devices as learning resources at tertiary level, that unravel the good disposition of the students polled towards the incorporation of these devices, both to university classes as well as to their future professional development.
Nowadays, mobile learning allows the use of mobile devices in teaching and learning practices of almost any subject or topic of interest. In this chapter, we describe a research carried out to get data about the use that university students make of mobile devices and apps for learning purposes, as most of them use mobile phones and tablets as communication and entertainment tools, but don't get benefit from these devices as educational resources, either due to lack of knowledge or to the scarce information about the pedagogical uses of these devices. The methodology followed is based on an analysis of the results obtained from questionnaires implemented to students. From the data collected, we draw a number of conclusions relevant not only to the successful development research studies like this, but also for the implementation of teaching initiatives including mobile devices and applications for improving learning processes in general.
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