Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Learning Environments with Digital Pens

Abstract

The exponential evolution that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have suffered the last years has been one of the reasons why all type of sectors as industrial or educational have improved their productivity. One of the disadvantages of this fast evolution is that not all users have been used to this new technologies, basically because the way of doing a task has drastically changed. This problem is known as “increase of the technological or digital gap”. In order to reduce this technological gap we have designed, implemented and evaluated a new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) based on digital pens. This solution consists of the integration of typical devices with a Learning Management System (LMS), concretely, Google Apps. A digital pen looks and feels like a normal ballpoint pen but thanks to it the handwriting can be captured, stored and sent by a safe way. In this case these data are sent to the LMS where students can manage and share notes by this platform and complete an existing document in the LMS with the digitalized information. The platform also offers a way to evaluate the students. Students can do several tests created by teachers previously. To carry out this activity, students will use a digital pen. Thus, the digitized information with the answers of the students will send to the platform where the tests are corrected immediately.