TEACHING WEB-ENHANCED COURSES FOR FOOD SAFETY AND TEXTILE DESIGN CLASSES
TEACHING WEB-ENHANCED COURSES FOR FOOD SAFETY AND TEXTILE DESIGN CLASSES

Summary/Abstract: Teaching in the digital era brings along a lot of interesting opportunities for both teachers and learners in various engineering subjects. Using information technology may facilitate learner centred instruction, as teachers are expected to meet the learning needs of all students through a personalized learning approach. Depending on the amount of content delivered online, courses could be Web Facilitated (or Web-Enhanced), Blended (or Hybrid), and Online. The main purpose of this case study was to experiment and evaluate the implementation of Web Enhanced courses for specific food engineering and textile engineering disciplines. Such Web Enhanced courses combine online and face-to-face activities, although online elements play a supplemental role to the face-to-face class. To decide on which e-teaching and learning resources (e-TLR), specific to food safety and textile design disciplines, would be more helpful for students to achieve their learning goals, an evaluation of the online environment was conducted. The remarkable increase in free resources and relevant tools (dedicated software) available online, via Webinars, blogs, open repositories, journals and social media allows appropriate choices. Also, in order to increase engagement, collaboration and understanding among students, the social media suitability as an interaction conveyer was assessed. Courses, delivered using Power Point Presentations, are accessible to students both during scheduled classes and virtually through the university platform (on https://core.uav.ro/) anytime via personal smart phone, computer, tablet, etc. Exploring ways technology and the internet could be used in food safety and textile design learning, the results pointed out to the importance of appropriate courses design and use of e-TLR. Accordingly, discussion concerning the findings and implications for future research are elaborated.

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