M-learning and E-learning Interactive Applications to Enhance the Teaching-Learning Process in Optical Communications Courses

In this paper, we propose to enhance and speed-up the teaching-learning process in optical communication subjects by designing and implementing new e-learning and m-learning strategies and applications. The new educational scenario demands a methodological renewal focused on the learning process and the acquisition of skills. In this way, telematic and interactive tools can promote this change due to their flexibility and great development. As a consequence, students can be provided with a set of powerful software tools that help them to increase their autonomy and their capacity to acquire skills. The range of tools that is nowadays available is enormous, but we have chosen strategies based on e-learning and m-learning applications in order to take advantage of the different strengths of the two approaches. First of all, we propose to provide subjects with high flexibility by designing voice-guided tutorial videos of complex concepts and software simulators used in lectures and laboratories. In particular, in this paper we focus on subjects from the optical communications area, since this area is highly complex and it is a good scenario for the practical use of our proposal. The main objective is to promote a virtual access to optical communication experiments and simulations related to laboratory subjects. However, these video-tutorials also look to be a powerful tool in lectures to explain fundamental principles and physical phenomena better. On the other hand, we have designed a set of Android applications, since mobile learning is an effective technique to transform and strengthen the traditional training and learning strategies. The involvement of mobile devices in the learning process aims to improve the interaction of teachers with students and to be used as a complementary support to increase their capacity for work and their motivation out of class. In summary, the development and integration of these software techniques exhibit great advantages since they may speed-up some learning tasks and they can be used to enhance the quality of the teaching methodologies.