An Integrated Virtual Environment for Active and Collaborative e-Learning in Theory of Computation

Active and collaborative learning provides a powerful mechanism to enhance depth of learning, increase material retention, and get students involved with the material instead of passively listening to a lecture. In this paper, a research using web-based active and collaborative learning in the theory of computation and related fields is presented. The twofold contribution of this work is a novel use of existing technology to improve learning and a longitudinal quasi-experimental evaluation of its use in context. As a first contribution, we introduce an integrated environment that is designed to meet the active learning preferences of computer engineering learners, in addition to a support for collaborative learning. For the second contribution: several classroom experiments are carried out. The analysis of the experiments´ outcomes and the students feed back show that our integrated environment is useful as a learning tool, in addition to enhancing learners´ motivation to seek more knowledge and information on their own.