When Learning Objects Aren't Available
If reusable learning objects are not available what best practices can be implemented to design and develop eLearning content?
When developing a Learning Object, first and foremost, you have to define or know your course objectives. In e-learning, especially those without a synchronous component, the material has to be easily understood. Since an e-learning object often takes the part of the role of an face-to-face instructor, the material needs to be relevant, recent, and applicable to real-life scenarios.
I also think it’s important to make sure your data repository (if using one) is accurate and up to date. There is nothing more off-putting than outdated or unprofessional material (in my opinion).
There are also issues with copyright related to e-learning, especially in art history – my subject matter. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent requesting copyright permissions on Ancient Egyptian art images during one particular course development contract. Wiki Commons, Creative Commons are great for images. Since I deal quite a bit with Modern Art – most of which is still copyright protected – I use a LOT of hyperlinks my class development. Not ideal, and requires some maintenance, but it is an art history course and they HAVE to be looking at images.
According to Rachel Smith’s Guidelines for Authors of Learning Objectives, the interactive component is important (p. 2). Students want to engage in their own learning, so having the students have control to proceed through the knowledge, or even taking different paths, etc. is important. This is where different modalities (audio, text, video, etc.) come in. Of course, it has to be user friendly, since you will have students in their first online class mixed with students who’ve been dealing with the internet and ‘online activities’ since middle school. Another critical aspect is the software ‘technology gap’ – the tools must be accessible for all to view on most computers or web browsers. Last, but not least, it’s important to consider it’s re-usability so you are not re-creating the wheel for each learning object.
References:
Harman, K. and Koohang, A. (2007). Learning Objects: Standards, Metadata, Repositories & LCMS. Informing Science Press.
Smith, R. (2004). Guidelines for Authors of Learning Objectives. The New Media Consortium. McGraw Hill.
Jacob,
It is important to think about copyright law and work within the regulations. Thanks for your input.
Often times it can be difficult to determine when fair use under copyright law may ber permissible in using certain audio and visual works of art. Linking often times can help mitigate this issue, but I do not always find it the most helpful. Typically, academic research, presentations and papers are good sources for my respository.
Rebekah,
Keep the references coming. And, I love Educause. If you get a chance to go to one of their conferences, it is well worth it!
Valerie,
Thank you for providing those references. Using Learning Objects in the classroom is very beneficial for a variety of reasons, the main one being student engagement. Students must actively participate in the learning process to ensure the concepts and information is both assimilated and can be applied to a given scenario. Here is another useful resource for learning objects: The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative publishes the 7 Things You Should Know About... series. Each month, ELI publishes a new "7 Things" giving an informative and concise overview on a learning technology of current interest. Here is the link: http://www.educause.edu/eli.
Becky
Valerie,
All learning objects you may need in your online course may not be available. You may develop some as you go, but remember to keep them in a repository so you can easily get to them and use them over and over again. This is a big timesaver. Thanks for the references.
