Personal Learning Environment

This weeks session is based on Learning Objects (LO’s).  After reading the notes on LMS i still wanted to find more information about what they are and what they mean in education. I found a reading by Susan Metros. I have chosen the most important parts in this reading of a Learning Object and will list them:

1. A learning object is ‘any digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning’

2. Digital resources comprise simulations, movie clips, audio files, photos, illustrations, maps, quizzes, text documents, and much more. Thus, to be considered a learning object, the digital resource must include or link to (1) a learning objective, (2) a practice activity, and (3) an assessment.

3. Students today are sophisticated media users and expect high-quality, easily accessible, media-rich, interactive, and authentic learning experiences. If learning objects are poorly designed or used inappropriately, learning suffers. Faculty may not be the best choice to design and develop learning objects. Though they are experts in their chosen disciplines, few have the pedagogical background, the technical skill, or the desire to sidetrack their scholarship and devote themselves to time-consuming instructional technology project development. Creating high-quality learning objects requires a team of highly skilled professional programmers and instructional and visual designers, often supplemented with writers, musicians, animators, videographers, photographers, and illustrators.

4. A repository chock-full of learning objects cannot, by its simple existence, create dynamic learning. Although learning objects have been discussed anecdotally, there are very few published case studies describing the successful use of learning objects in higher education, and there is almost no scholarly research formally assessing their educational value

5. Developers finally are letting go of the comfort of the book metaphor and are taking advantage of the inherent capabilities of technology to provide learner-centered, nonlinear, customizable, media-rich educational content

6. Unlike textbooks, learning objects—with their ability to be navigated nonlinearly, to incorporate multimedia, and to be interactive and customizable—exist in a virtual world that can be accessed within and across disciplines, both vertically and horizontally. Some in the academic research arena are beginning to look back and to document best practices while initiating formal research studies. However, the question of whether educators are willing to change their age-old teaching practice and to develop, use, and share knowledge, in the form of “learning objects,” still begs to be answered.

Metros, S 2005, ‘Learning objects: A rose by another name’, Educause Review, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 12-13.

http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume40/LearningObjectsARosebyAnyOther/157986