This university located in a big city of Spain counts with more than 250000 students. The pilot was developed in the Faculty of Education with a group of 74 third year students. From this universe, a sample of 15 students (with ages between 18-25 years old) engaged with the TRAILER tool and only 12 were considered active users, showing 49% of actions performed in the 2 platforms. However the participation was low in the average number of competences added per informal learning activity (ILA). In terms of published activities, even though the number is low, it was the case that presented the highest value, as was the number of users competences defined.
They presented a good prior recognition of informal learning (IL), which improved with the work developed in this pilot. They scored almost every option of important activities that potentially develop their IL, mentioning: “Trial and error”, “Conversations” and “Online tutorials” as the highest. In general, comparing with other cases, they show the higher level of agreement relatively to the need for IL activities in “being better prepared to find a job”.
They stressed that one of the advantages of this idea was being able to record knowledge’s, experiences and skills that would otherwise be forgotten and then describe and organize them. They said teachers could see students’ interest on particular activities and competencies areas and modify or improve curricula or didactical planning accordingly.
Even though they had identified some usability issues regarding the platforms (they saw no need for 2 platforms, long list of competences and the limited type of activity choices) they think that if well used by students and teachers, it could facilitate relationships between them and the institution. They also suggest to improve the mobile interface and to create easy interfaces in order to quickly write down all kind of IL evidences.
This was in agreement of what the Professor and Director of the University Institute of Educational Sciences thought, suggesting that it could contribute to a supplement diploma integrating skills beyond the official curricula.