Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 20-hour blended learning visual literacy course applied to in-service teachers. For this purpose, we designed the course to train the educators and the instrument to measure the level of visual literacy of participants before and after the intervention. Then, we found the differences. Background: Visual literacy is essential for improving visual communication skills on in-service teachers because they use and construct visual material permanently. Hence, they need to be trained for developing visual literacy taking into account their pace of life and specific needs. Methodology: We employed a quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design. The area of study is Social Science, specifically Education. The population was in-service teachers who work in private schools in the north zone of Quito, Ecuador. The convenience sampling method was used to conduct this pilot study of 51 teachers at one private school. The visual literacy course was designed based on the ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards. The differences in the level of visual literacy were measured through a visual literacy test of 45 items made for this specific purpose. Differences between pretest and posttest were found after performing paired samples t-test on collected data. Contribution: This research contributes to visual literacy research focused on in-service teacher’s instruction. This practical study was based on a complete proposal for training and evaluated the visual literacy level of in-service teachers. Findings: Findings show that there are statistically significant differences in pretest and posttest scores, so teachers improved their level of visual literacy after the 20-hour blended learning visual literacy course. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners should adapt the length of the training course to the teachers’ schedules. They should review the course themes and the items in the visual literacy test to know about the specific content to be taught along the course. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers who want to replicate a similar study should have a bigger group of participants and, if possible, they should have a control group. Impact on Society: This study indicates that teachers could improve their level of visual literacy after attending a well-structured training course. Thus, it is crucial to offer in-service teachers the opportunity to improve their visual communication skills through a concrete learning process adapted to their schedules and life. Future Research: Future research should focus on evaluating before and after the treatment, through practical projects, the previous and acquired knowledge of in-service teachers.

There are many technological resources available to university teachers, and their use, with a transparent teaching methodology, can improve and update higher education, both in face-to-face and virtual training. Platforms such as Kahoot!, accompanied by the student's smartphone, allow the teacher to create a classroom response system (CRS) a fast and straightforward way. The present study, with a non-experimental design, is developed to assess the use of this tool in higher education, both in a face-to-face format and through a virtual learning environment. After applying an electronic questionnaire (20 items; alpha=.958) to a sample of 148 students (94 in the face-to-face mode and 54 in the virtual mode) whose teachers had used Kahoot! with the same methodological planning, a high degree of predisposition for their employment as future teaching professionals and positive perception of the resource is detected, especially when assessing their potential for self-assessment of the learning process and assimilation of the basic concepts of the subject. Likewise, after the Mann-Whitney U test, it was found that students in the virtual mode showed a higher score than those in the face-to-face mode. It concludes by stressing the importance of teachers using technological resources such as Kahoot to promote innovative methodologies for the benefit of quality higher education. Besides, as a consequence of the previous studies, it is considered that the discrepancies found are due to a more positive evaluation in the training modality where the use of this type of resources is more innovative.

El presente estudio, a partir de la opinión de los estudiantes de las diferentes titulaciones del ámbito de la Educación, valora el empleo de una metodología docente gamificada con Kahoot en la enseñanza universitaria, donde el smartphone se convierte en un recurso educativo. Para ello, se lleva a cabo una investigación no experimental de carácter descriptivo, aplicando un cuestionario electrónico a una muestra de 241 estudiantes de Educación Primaria (69), Educación Infantil (78), Pedagogía (73) y Educación Social (29). Los resultados obtenidos muestran como los alumnos valoran positivamente el empleo de Kahoot, sobre todo como herramienta de autoevaluación. Además evidencian que les satisface su uso formativo y que, como futuros docentes, la emplearían. Sin embargo, a pesar de que reconocen que la metodología gamificada aumenta su motivación por la materia, no están convencidos de que sea más efectiva que otras metodologías tradicionales.

Este artículo presenta una investigación cuyo objetivo es el de conocer la percepción que tiene el profesorado de la Universidad de Salamanca sobre la integración de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en las diferentes modalidades que emplea en su práctica docente (Proyecto de investigación subvencionado por La Junta de Castilla y León, orden EDU/1933/2008). En base a una muestra representativa por rama y categoría profesional de 161 docentes, con una metodología cuantitativa, un método no experimental y descriptivo; se muestra como los profesores emplean y compatibilizan las diferentes modalidades docentes, desarrollando metodologías de trabajo tanto autónomo como colaborativo, donde perciben a las TIC como recursos docentes parcialmente integrados. Así mismo, a pesar de la existencia de estudios previos que constatan que el género del docente y su edad son variables influyentes, los resultados obtenidos en esta investigación muestran que el género del docente y la edad son factores que no influyen significativamente en la integración de las TIC a la docencia.