Teaching Power Electronics and Digital Electronics using Personal Learning Environments. From Traditional Learning to Remote Experiential Learning

Abstract

Practical works have a fundamental role in the curriculum of any scientist, engineer, and technician. It helps learners to face the real world and put in practice what they have learned to judge their operability. Moreover, due to some limiting factors and due to the growth number of learners, universities and institutes have become inapt to give efficient learning. Distance education presents a future key to reduce these restrictions.

Currently, remote experiments together with web-based courses approach significantly contribute to many aspects of education for learners. In this context, the main question addressed is how we ensure that an educational system evolves to better serve the needs of learners? The present work proposes a solution based on student’s Personal Learning Environments ‘PLEs’. PLEs are educational platforms that help learners take control and manage their own learning process, learning modules with remote experiments, for reaching a specific goal. In order to response these criteria we use the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle, the e-portfolio Mahara, the Remote Laboratory Management System (RLMS) iLab Shared Architecture (ISA) with additional tools and plug-ins to implement the learning by doing environment.