ICT for Teaching and Learning within Technical Faculties: Evolution and Trends

In the last 20 years the evolution of ICT has deeply changed the way of teaching and learning at the universities. In particular, within the faculties in Engineering, in which theoretical and practical aspects are linked together through experimental activities, the use of ICT helped to solve several problems. Before Internet one of the first ICT innovations was the introduction of hypertext-based software useful for the writing of documents, like guides for the introduction of students to practical experiments. Programs like ToolBook for Windows (Asymetrix) allowed the creation of hypertext-based structures. The guide was no more a ‘static’, but a ‘dynamic’ document in which the reading paths were chosen based on the knowledge level of readers (students). The same philosophy, based on hypertext links, was transferred to Internet. Internet added the potential of remote communication useful, for example, to control instruments in a remote way. Many proprietary software products were developed. Only with the introduction of LabVIEW (National Instruments) it became possible to create communication between a computer and an instrument connected to it through an interface regardless of the manufacturing company of the instrument. Connecting the computer to Internet made it possible to create measurement systems in which the component instruments may reside in various laboratories. Through Internet the instruments could be shared. The preferred way to do it was to create web-based laboratory systems with the main advantage that students could connect easily to remote measurement systems and perform experimental tasks. As web-based studying is not dependant on time and place, students can freely choose the time to perform experimental tasks. In this kind of architecture two kinds of problem rise: - instrumentation systems must always stay on in unmanned laboratories. Today from the sustainability point of view this is no more possible. Due to the lack of resources, instruments must work as many hours as possible. It is unthinkable to keep ‘blocked’ instruments only for didactic purposes. Within faculties of Engineering instruments are used both in research and in didactics; - there is another pedagogical implication: do the remote controlled instruments add anything more than a good simulated instrument? The answer is no. The aim of a remote controlled instrument is to give students the opportunity to acquire experience in the use of it before entering a real laboratory, but the same purpose may be reached with fully-simulated instruments. Nothing can substitute the real experience that students can have with real instruments. Also methodological innovations in teaching and learning take advantage by the introduction of ICT. Problem Based Learning (PBL) and cooperative work can be implemented in Learning Management Systems (LMS) that now are widespread within technical faculties. LMS can be used both for technical and humanities courses, for example, a foreign language learning. LMS allow not only a better management of lessons, but also additional features, like online testing with automatic scoring, improving the quality of teaching and studying.