Collaborative digital tools for the training of future teachers in an online university

Collaboration and the relationship between students play an essential role in a non-face-to-face educational environment. However, at the same time, they are complicated concepts to address and implement, and in this sense, digital tools can be a great help to achieve those goals. Moreover, when it is a question of an online university context with students who are future teachers, the development of their digital competence and their capacity to work collaboratively should not be considered as complementary aspects, but rather as essential areas which must not be ignored. In this research paper, we have worked with a sample of 115 online university students enrolled in the Degree in Primary Education Teaching and the Master's Degree for teachers of Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language Schools. The use of collaborative tools within an active learning proposal has been analyzed to determine their ease of use, as well as their collaborative potential and their motivational effect on students. In addition, the intention of the participants to use these tools in their own classes in the future has also been considered. The results have been highly positive regarding the tools chosen, with averages higher than three points out of four in all the sections analyzed. The well-known Google Docs stood out as the most complete tool (av. 3.63) followed very closely by Wakelet (av. 3.61), which is generally not as widely known, but which is becoming increasingly popular due to the range of possibilities it offers.