Theoretical foundations that support the use of educational software in the teaching and learning process. The software for the application and interaction with educational software.
The Teaching-Learning Process
Teaching as a joint activity of the teacher and students is divided into two related processes: teaching as the activity of the teacher and that of learning as the activity of the student. The teacher represents the interests of society, and has the obligation to teach and educate schoolchildren.
Reinaldo E. Abreu Concepción in his master's thesis defines the following:
«The Teaching-Learning Process has as its essential purpose to contribute to the integral formation of the personality of the student and the female student, constituting the fundamental way for the acquisition of the knowledge, procedures, skills, norms of behavior and values bequeathed by humanity ».
On the other hand, Rita M. Álvarez de Zayas states that "the Teaching-Learning Process is a process of direction, communication, socialization where the teacher communicates, expresses, organizes, facilitates the scientific-historical contents."
When reviewing the definitions about this process, that of the Licensee is assumed, to be closer to the purpose of the investigation.
Educational software as a teaching medium
The teaching aids are the mediating tools of the teaching-learning process used by teachers and students, which contribute to active participation, both individual and collective, on the object of knowledge. The media are not only used by teachers, but must be of real use to students for the development of interaction and specific skills.
Some definitions show this as Graf Werner, Kurt Mocker and Gunter Wesiman, German teachers who consider “as teaching aids and didactic materials in general, the means that were consciously created for the pedagogical process on the basis of teaching documents, taking advantage of pedagogical knowledge, and that serves the one who teaches and the one who learns to carry out didactic processes ”.
Dr. Vicente González Castro, based on his pedagogical functions, stated “The teaching aids are the means of objectification of the work, which are linked to the material objects that support the teaching process and contribute decisively to the achievement of its objective… Theory and Practice of the teaching aids are all the components of the teaching-educational process that act as material support of the methods (instructive or educational), in order to achieve the objectives set.
Lothar Klingberg, a German pedagogue, points out “… as a teaching medium, all the material means needed by the teacher or the student for an effective and rational structuring or conducting of the process of instruction and education are called at all levels, in all spheres of our educational system and for all subjects, to satisfy the teaching plan ”.
Collective of Pedagogy authors define it as "… Different images and representations of objects and phenomena that are made especially for teaching, also real natural and industrial objects, which contain information and are used as a source of knowledge."
Another definition given and from which it is taken is that of Dr. Antonio Porto, considering it affordable, applicable and concrete to the purpose of this diploma work that defines the teaching aids as: “… all that material or materialized component of the process which, depending on the method, serves to build the representations of the essential relationships of the knowledge and skills to be acquired that expresses the objective… ”. Analyzing this definition, it can be seen that computing is part of the material component that favors the flexibility of students 'thinking, since it stimulates the search for different solutions for the same problem, allowing a greater deployment of the students' cognitive resources.
That is why the use of the computer in the classroom implies a greater degree of abstraction of actions, an awareness and anticipation of what is often done "automatically", stimulating the passage from sensorimotor behaviors to behaviors operative, generalizing reversibility to all planes of thought.
The computer can interact with the user through textual stimuli, graphics, color, sound, animations; it is able to process the information and show the result of what the user asked to do. Interactivity is a quality that differentiates it from other media, it should be considered as the main indicator for its use.
The concept of educational software has been approached by different authors, attributing to it dissimilar definitions, despite which the potentialities are imposed and its absolute foundation in the principles of teaching for its link in the teaching-learning process. It is a program created with the specific purpose of being used as a didactic means, that is, to facilitate the teaching-learning process.
In the pedagogical sciences, Sánchez J and Rodríguez Lamas, among others, have addressed the concept, characteristics and potential of educational software from their research.
Sánchez J. defines the generic concept of Educational Software as any computer program whose structural and functional characteristics support the process of teaching, learning and managing.
According to Rodríguez Lamas, it is a computer application that, supported by a well-defined pedagogical strategy, directly supports the teaching-learning process, constituting an effective instrument for the educational development of the man of the next century.
These authors agree in the definitions provided, the instrumental nature of software in the teaching-learning process, while making it clear that it can be any computer application.
In this sense, the author considers that these definitions remain at an extremely general level where any computer application that is used in the teaching-learning process can be considered educational software.
On the other hand, Bill Gates in his book "Road to the Future" defines Educational Software as a computer program, a two-way, interactive teaching medium based on a way of presenting information that uses a combination of text, sound, image, animation, video with specific purposes aimed at contributing to the development of predetermined aspects of the teaching process10 and Ms. Rosa Lidia Peña Gálvez in the Basic Computing Methodological Program and Orientations, states:
"Educational Software are Computer programs, whose objective is to instruct and educate, allow the operation of the machine from the operations of the Windows Operating System and its applications. These programs will be used from kindergarten to sixth grade in the educational teaching process, they contribute to raising the quality of learning and allow better attention to the treatment of individual differences in correspondence with the diagnosis of the students ”.
After studying the aforementioned theoretical references, the author uses the two previous definitions due to their belonging to the proposal, taking into account the interaction with the software for its better use, adding that these can be very developer and effective but if it fails to motivate students within the objective pursued and does not present a system of activities will not fulfill their didactic function.
Educational software is characterized by being highly interactive, based on the use of multimedia resources, such as videos, sounds, photographs, specialized dictionaries, explanations by experienced teachers, exercises and instructional games that support the evaluation and diagnostic functions. The objective is to make the exchange more efficient: increase satisfaction, reduce frustration and, ultimately, make the tasks that surround students more productive, hence: What advantages or benefits does working with educational software bring?
- It allows interactivity with students, providing feedback and evaluating what has been learned, through it the problem can be demonstrated as such.It facilitates animated representations.It influences the development of skills through exercise.It allows to simulate complex processes.It reduces the time available to impart a large amount of knowledge facilitating a differentiated work, introducing the student to work with computerized media. They allow to transmit a large volume of information in a shorter time, in an enjoyable and regulated way by the teacher. at the same time an individual treatment of the differences in correspondence with the diagnosis of the learners. They develop the logical processes of thought, imagination, creativity and memory.
The use of the software by the teacher provides numerous benefits, including:
- It enriches the field of Pedagogy by incorporating cutting-edge technology that revolutionizes teaching-learning methods It constitutes a new, attractive, dynamic and rich source of knowledge They can adapt the software to the characteristics and needs of their group taking into account the diagnosis in the teaching-learning process, which allows to raise its quality. They allow to control the teaching tasks individually or collectively. They show the interdisciplinarity of the subjects.
Classification of educational software
There are various criteria referring to the different classifications of educational software, some are based on the didactic functions of the activity they simulate, others on the learning theories on which they are based, others according to the form of organization of teaching that they model, etc.
The MsC Alfonso Rivero12 classifies it based on criteria that respond to the functions or purposes for which they were designed. In this three groups are established, they are:
- Active teaching aids Passive teaching aids Indirect action teaching aids
Taking the Educational Informatics brochure prepared by the ISPETP group of authors13, the definitions for the different types of software that follow are assumed:
In the first group are all those means designed to try to replace the teacher and direct the teaching process that will have a marked self-taught character. Included in this group are:
- Tutorials Trainers Reviewer Evaluators
In the second, the means that are developed to be used in a teaching activity conducted by the teacher are grouped, not intending to replace them.
They resemble traditional teaching aids in this purpose. These include among others:
- E-book Simulators
The third group considers those means that the student uses without the conscious intention of learning something with them, but which, due to their characteristics, subtly exercise their didactic action. In this group are instructional games.
Instructive games: Software that tries to awaken through the game a sufficient level of motivation and predisposition for the assimilation of the instructive content.
In reality, it should not be thought that they are mutually exclusive, on the contrary, to respond to a specific pedagogical strategy, software can be made that integrates characteristics of several of them.
Taking into account the previous classifications, the educational software "Resolving
Mathematical Problems ”can be classified within the Reviewers designed with the purpose of developing a certain manual or motor skill, especially when the skill to be developed is intellectual.
This software is presented in the form of a game where the second grader finds motivation by the presence of a first screen where he will travel in a boat bordering a beach and will find different levels as he progresses, with mathematical exercises in each level and their evaluation respectively, the challenge will be to solve them and reach the goal, which will be the end of the journey. (Figure 1)
Educational Software Screen Solving Mathematical Problems.
Figure 1: Educational Software Screen Solving Mathematical Problems. Source: SE
The objective is that the exchange is more efficient, increase satisfaction, decrease frustration and ultimately make the tasks that surround the student more productive, allowing with this software to evaluate the responses, issue suggestions, reflections, cognitive aid levels, develop activities of various complexity and thus enables the active assimilation of the contents and motivates the student towards a developer learning and gives the class an interdisciplinary character..
Softarea as a system of activities for the application and interaction with educational software
In the teaching-learning process, there is a need to develop learning strategies that enable teachers to use technology appropriately, particularly the correct use of educational software for working with students. The importance of the introduction of educational software collections with an extensive curricular nature, for all grades and educations, does not lie solely in the possession of these media as such, but in the novel use that each teacher is capable of conceiving for their group of students. students according to the diagnosis of each of them. One of the ways that enables this and the fulfillment of the objectives established in the program of each subject, is the assignment of specific task systems for students, called Softarea.
Softarea is a pedagogical concept, in the context of the use of educational software, that is, it is a teaching task, which in the process of its resolution, it is necessary to interact with certain educational software, to process certain information. Of course, the development of skills is at the center of the process of solving a softask, which can be general or specific.
Softasing is defined according to the MsC. Odalys Rabelo Vázquez, as a system of learning activities organized according to specific objectives, whose essence consists in the interaction with educational software, which aims to direct and guide students in the processes of assimilation and rational use of the contents to through mechanisms of: search, selection, creation, processing, discovery, experimentation, conservation, storage and interactive processing of information.
A softarea conceives the interaction with educational software that can adopt both active and passive positions. This type of activity is also a way that will offer students the possibility of solving practical problems, of daily life, that are related to what they have learned, as well as developing investigative activities, according to their possibilities.
In the VI National Seminar, Cesar Labañino 15 refers to the fact that in the preparation of the task with the educational software (softarea) the objectives and the content to be treated according to the diagnosis are decided, he selects the educational software that he will use to The solution to the existing problem, analyzes the software guide, analyzes the methodological recommendation contained in the software and specifies the use that will be given to the educational software.
To continue delving into this topic, the diploma work will be supported by the definition and other features, characteristics and structures of the softarea given by the author of reference, MsC Odalis Rabelo Vázquez.
Essential features of softarea
- It is an activity that is carried out, essentially, using educational software. Student-centered. Develops computer skills. It has an interdisciplinary nature by nature. It encourages collaborative and cooperative work. It is based, among others, on the use of search procedures., selection, processing, creation, discovery, experimentation, conservation and storage of information.
Requirement of softarea
- Guarantee mastery of the selected theoretical contents Tasks that go through the three levels of performance Tasks at the level of identification and realization of concepts Tasks with open and closed questions Tasks that motivate students to do them, by their way of raise them and the control carried out by the teacher in each activity. That they respond to the dosage that the degree has in the subject. Tasks that encourage debate and reflection of the students, as a means to enhance learning.
To perform the softarea, the teacher must take into account that the student must be adequately stimulated to face the tasks in the machine, and that he should not be disappointed if he fails or makes a mistake when solving them. For this he will use different levels of help, which allow him to intervene with his mediating role until they reach success.
These levels of help are: verbal support of what has to be done in the task for the student to act; Verbal alert about a mistake made when executing the task and demonstration of the task by the teacher so that the student can do it later.
The work sessions with the student consist of three moments which must always be fulfilled to be successful in them, they were hosted by the lawyer Niuris Gil de Monte16. These moments are:
Initial orientation: this moment ranges from the greeting, the entrance of the student to the premises, the initial motivation so that they feel desire and pleasure to work on the machine, to the orientation of the task to be solved.
This moment can begin outside the workplace until the student sits down at the computer.
Development of the task: it begins when the already oriented student faces the search for the solution of the task. It is here when the teacher will apply the different levels of help if they are required.
At this time, the algorithm to be executed by the student is also fulfilled when solving each task with which the teacher must know and promote, since the development of mental processes in them depends on its realization.
The algorithm comprises the following steps:
1st. Plan the action to be carried out: the student understands the task and traces the solution path to be used.
2nd. Execute action: when you use the mouse or keyboard to perform actions.
3rd. Partial control of the action: when, when solving the task, you simultaneously check if you did it correctly or made a mistake, allowing you to modify the initial planning and execute it successfully.
4th. Evaluate the final results of the action: when you are able to assess whether you completed the task correctly, or if you made a mistake, preparing to rectify it or move on to another more complex task.
This algorithm is repeated in the execution of each task, the steps of which occur quickly, and sometimes simultaneously, which in practice makes it impossible to separate one from the other.
Conclusion and assessment of the work session: the teacher's final conversation with the students about the task performed, the successes obtained, is included, leaving them motivated for future work sessions. In addition, it covers the farewell of the student until his departure from the premises.
The need to prepare teachers at the school level for the design and use of softareas during the teaching-learning process of the curriculum subjects should be highlighted.
The softarea rationalizes the time available to teach, assimilate and consolidate the content, which is why it is an important way to be used by teachers, computer laboratory advisors to favor the improvement of the teaching-learning process. It is a support that contributes to motivation, understanding, preparing and fixing knowledge.
The softarea assumes the following characteristics:
- Integrative: they are integrative insofar as they take into account technical aspects of the subject as a work tool, as a teaching medium and as an object of study Motivational: by provoking in students an intellectual effort that mobilizes them in the search for solutions where they express their Contextualized knowledge: while considering the potentialities and needs of students, as well as the demands of the educational level in question.
Phases of a softarea
Taking into account that the softarea is a system of learning activities, organized according to specific objectives, the teacher must plan to be able to comply with the phases through which the softarea must go through, these are:
- Orientation phase: In this phase the teacher will be able to present the softask using different ways according to their possibilities Execution phase: In the formulation of the task and the orientation, the actions to be carried out by the student must be specified in order to solve it. control: The evaluation of solutions to the tasks set.
The formulation of the task will present the questions, exercises or activities that will be carried out, according to the planned objectives and the diagnosis made to each student. It should provide the necessary guiding basis and bear in mind when assigning the exercises, their complexity, the adjustments to be made, as well as reflect on the classification of activities according to the three fundamental levels of assimilation, proposed by various pedagogues:
Reproduction, Application and Creation.
Structure and guide of a softarea
There is no single structure for all the softareas, it depends on several factors such as the degree for which it is oriented, the subject, the diagnosis of the group, etc. Below is a suggestion regarding the structure and guide of the same and by which the author of the work will support the proposal. (Figure 2).
Structure of a softarea guide. Source: Educational Informatics Brochure.
Figure 2: Structure of a softarea guide. Source: Educational Informatics Brochure. ISPETP.
1. Identification: Attributes for automation
- Soft-task number.Collection.SoftwareEducational.Subject (s).Degree.Title.Assimilation level.Objective.Author (s), Institution and Position.Date of elaboration.Abstract.
2. Introduction: Brief information is offered about the activity they are going to carry out:
- Orientation towards the objectives to be achieved Motivation towards carrying out the activity Location in the subject to be studied Forms of work to be used (individual, in teams) Guidance on execution and completion time Form of evaluation and control.
3. Activities: Interactivities with educational software or other resources that students must carry out in the pursuit of achieving the objectives will be exposed.
For the formulation of the tasks it should be taken into account:
- The enumeration of each task in order to establish the relationship with its possible suggestion The complexity, according to the levels of assimilation of the proposed objectives The knowledge and previous experiences that the student has on the subject The motivations and interests The Interdisciplinarity (relationship established between computer skills, work with the mother tongue and the subjects studied). Development in values (the formation of feelings, convictions and ideals).
4. Suggestions: The guidelines or suggestions that may accompany the activities will be reflected. They constitute levels of aid, which must have the intention of eliminating barriers of a different nature that hinder the achievement of the objectives and may refer, among others, to:
- Oriented with work with vocabulary. Linked with computer skills. (Examples: manipulation of input and output peripherals; decoding of iconographic elements typical of human-machine interfaces; possible ways of navigation (through menus, navigation panels, hyperlinks, advanced search mechanisms, etc.); mechanisms for the extraction of information (copy and print); manipulation of media diffusers; establishment of man-machine dialogue; mechanisms for the preservation of information (save); mechanisms of synchronous (Chat) and asynchronous (Mail, Forum) communication Linked with the mastery of the preceding contents and the skills of the contents of the subjects (assess, explain, summarize, etc.) Linked with the achievement of learning.
5. Evaluation In this section the indicators will be presented and the way in which the softarea will be evaluated, with the intention that this propitiates the development of the metacognition of the students and with it the progressive transition from dependence to independence through of self-regulation.
6. Conclusions: In this section we will see the results of the knowledge through the execution and application of the softarea. Used intelligently, it opens up new perspectives on how to reaffirm the knowledge acquired and obtain other additionally, through an entertaining way.
