EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF NEW INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES IN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
Lascano VM ; Ángel Villegas N; Paraje MG#
#Departamento de Farmacia, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Haya de la Torre y Medina Allende, Córdoba (Argentina), CP: 5000.
Introduction
The New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) can be defined as tools and processes used
to store, organize, and share information electronically, allowing transmission, processing and dispersion of
information in real time. In the subject ?Prepracticanato Profesional de Farmacia?, belonging to the 8º
semester of the Pharmacy career, a virtual classroom was implemented under the Moodle learning platform as
a new teaching strategy.
In this course, there are activities designed to train and develop students with the skills necessary to use
different sources of information on drugs in relation to the proper use and resolution of problems related to
these, thereby promoting their rational use. Our aim was to reinforce what students have learned in class and
become familiar with the use of NICTs by providing them with all the necessary tools.
Objetive:
Assess the impact of the implementation of NICTs through a virtual classroom, in addition to traditional
teaching in the subject ?Prepracticanato Profesional de Farmacia?.
Materials and methods
An online semi-structured survey was drawn up and the students answered anonymously at the end of the
course. 366 questionnaires were analyzed for the years 2008 (n = 99), 2009 (n = 125) and 2010 (n = 142).
Results
During the three years, most of the students visited the virtual classroom more than 10 times (2008 = 64.94%,
2009 = 66.38% and 2010 = 69.05%). The students felt that the virtual test exercises provided "much better" or
"better" understanding and integration of the content of the subject (2008 = 41.95% and 50%, 2009 = 39.79%
and 51.9 % and 2010 = 37.41% and 52.94%, respectively).
Over the three years, an average of 98.67% of students said they would like to continue the use of NICTs for
Professional practice. After the course, 92.2% found useful the application in the pre-professional year of the
tools learned in the ?Prepracticanato?.
Conclusions
The use of NICTs is a very interesting and useful tool for the student during the development of the subject
?Prepracticanato?, and this was reflected in the use of Moodle during this time. In turn, using these new
methodologies of study, the teacher may permit better monitoring and other ways of working .
References
1. Lascano VM, Angel Villegas N, Paraje MG, et al. Pre-Practicanato Farmacia. Guía de Seminarios
2010. Córdoba: Departamento de Farmacia, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, UNC; 2010.
# Paraje, MG. Tel +54 351 4334163, fax +54 351 4334127; e-mail: paraje@fcq.unc.edu.ar
Paraje, MG. Tel +54 351 4334163, fax +54 351 4334127; e-mail: paraje@fcq.unc.edu.ar