Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Free learning objects to use in your courses
Reusability and tools for designing reusable learning objects
Best resources
CETIS
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/ JISC centre for educational technology and interoperability standardsIntute
http://www.intute.ac.uk/ is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners.
Jorum
Collection of reusable learning objects contributed by UK HE
MERLOT
http://www.merlot.org/Home.po MERLOT is a large, high-quality repository of learning materials for teachers and students in higher education worldwide. Resource types include tutorials, animations, and simulations, as well as books and websites. Each resource is peer-reviewed to ensure that it's of sufficient quality for inclusion. Resources are sorted by categories and sub-categories, with the categories probably of most interest to School staff being Health Science and Biology.RELOAD
http://www.reload.ac.uk/ is a project funded under the JISC Exchange for Learning Programme (X4L). The project focuses on the development of tools that are based on emerging learning technology interoperability specifications. (See also tools section)
Re-usable Educational Software Library
http://www.resl.ac.uk/ Re-usable Educational Software Library
Welcome to RESL - a library of resources to support good practice in the re-use of educational software
Came out of the SoURCE project: http://www.source.ac.uk
RLO-CETL
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs)
has a showcase of RLOS http://www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk/rlos.htm
Sharing the Load
http://www.ucel.ac.uk/load/index.htm A JISC-funded project exploring the reusability of learning designs. It is creating a learning design taxonomy based on designs implicit in existing collections of mature reusable learning content. Using these designs as a starting point, 'real-world' learning designs will be captured in workshops, and exemplars will be created using the ones that are the most shareable across subjects.TASI - Technical Advisory Service for Images
http://www.tasi.ac.uk A JISC-funded service to help people use digital images for teaching and learning materials. TASI provides online advice documents, image sites, a helpdesk, training, consultancy services, and a mailing list. For help see their website, or email info@tasi.ac.ukWisconsin Online Resource Center
http://www.wisc-online.com/ A large, searchable repository of learning objects in wide range of subjects, all implemented in Flash (as is much of the website). You have to register to use the site, but this is free, and you can deep-link to objects within the site.Tools for creating Reusable Learning Objects
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/ free tools for creating rich, interactive elearning content for the Flash platform.
RELOAD tools (ww.reload.ac.uk)
RELOAD Metadata and Content Packaging Editor
The key aim of the RELOAD project is the implementation of a reference-standard Content Package and Metadata Editor. The RELOAD Editor enables users to organise, aggregate and package learning objects in standard IMS and SCORM content packages tagged with Metadata (in various subsets) and vocabularies. Also supported is Level A Learning Design. The editor page links to all the downloads and further information.
RELOAD Learning Design Editor
The Learning Design Editor (based on the IMS Learning Design specifications) allows the creation of re-usable "Pedagogical Templates" allowing the user to define a set of Learning Objectives, Activities and Learning Environments. These templates can be re-purposed with the user's own content to create on-line Learning Design compliant resources. The LD Editor is available from the download page.
RELOAD SCORM Player
Also available is an ADL SCORM Player. This toolkit allows the playing of SCORM 1.2 packages within a developer edition of the Player. The player page links to all the downloads and further information.
Repositories
List- http://www.jimmyr.com/free_education.php
AEShareNet. Australian Web site that connects those looking for learning objects to those who have them, with an online facility for licensing.Apple Learning Interchange. Apple Computer's effort to encourage the interchange of ideas related to learning objects with "a museum of online exhibits created by educators for educators." http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/
Connexions is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute.
http://cnx.org/content/Consortium-based Portal for Online Objects in Learning (POOL) formed to develop an infrastructure for learning object repositories. It addresses the issues of building the architecture and makes its tools available for download. http://ilearn.senecac.on.ca/lop/
Internet Archive’s library of Open Educational Resources and university lectures. - http://www.archive.org/details/education
Maricopa Learning Exchange (MLX). Maricopa Community Colleges' (AZ) "electronic warehouse of ideas, examples and resources" (more than 500) presented as "packages" of reusable information.
MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htmNational Digital Learning Repository
http://www.ndlr.ie/
The NDLR is a HEA funded pilot project between all Irish Universities, Institutes of Technology and their affiliated colleges. The NDLR is an online resource bank to support collaboration and sharing of teaching and learning resources within the Irish Third Level Education sector.OER Commons is a teaching and learning network, from K-12 lesson plans to college courseware, from algebra to zoology, open to everyone to use and add to.
http://www.oercommons.org
Open-Of-Course is a multilingual portal for free online courses and tutorials. (Biult in Moodle)
http://www.open-of-course.org/
The OpenLearn website gives free access to course materials from The Open University. The LearningSpace is open to learners anywhere in the world.
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/Podcasts
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php
SMETE Digital Library. RLOs assembled by the Society for Mathematics, Engineering and Technical Education for students studying in those fields.
Stngyscholar Learn for free on the Web
http://stingyscholar.blogspot.com/
Tufts University OpenCourseWare
Educational content, tools, and infrastructure to educators, students, and self-learners.
http://ocw.tufts.edu/TuftsOER
Wisc-Online. http://www.wisc-online.com/Collection of open-access RLO's produced by higher education institutions in Wisconsin, plus guidelines for creation and use in instruction.
Tools for sharing
There are tools that already exist for sharing your materials. These include:
* Open SLedware an initiative of SL educators to make course content accessible to all
* List of 2.0 Apps
* TeacherTube (think YouTube for teachers)
* Zoho show
* Common Content: a open catalog of Creative Commons licensed content
* Poll Daddy
Labels: e-learning, elearning tools, free elearning, reusable learning objects, rlos
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:38 PM
Monday, 24 September 2007
Final reflections on the ALT-C conference #1
I was looking through my notes from the ALT conference and realising that I hadn't quite finished reflecting on the sessions. It seems unfair that the later sessions should miss out on reporting.
I tried to attend some sessions that were relevant to my areas of expertise and some that were new to me. A session on reusable learning objects made me realise that there are some things I know next to nothing about yet. Understanding RLOs requires quite a high degree of technical knowledge in XML etc. I have just enough knowledge to appreciate what the developers were doing, and the principles behind it, and how they can be used - but I don't think I'll be creating RLOs any time soon without further training! One of the sessions covered use of the XML editor (plus) software Xerte, free from Nottingham University.
Generative learning objects were the next new thing - they can be reused to adapt to other uses. One example was a "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" game template which could be used with questions sets from different subject areas.
One of the important messages was to separate design from content so that new content could be easily be put in. I certainly found that the case at NCSL last year when I was editing the XML files in the introduction to learning course to update the content: I didn't have to alter too much of the Flash.
Finally, I learned about umbrella learning objects (ULOs)
Key features of RLOs:
* can be placed in a different course or VLE
* can be edited by the tutor to update it (not just by a techie)
* can be repurposed, e.g., in a different subject area
My favourite session was an early morning session on Mobile technologies for Learning and Assessment. Gareth Firth from the ALPS CETL and Rob Arntsen from MyKnowledgeMap told us about the use of PDAs for learning and assessment (both summative and formative) in IPE by students during hospital placements.
We got to play with the PDAs, download a video, take a picture and upload it to a website. An internet-ready PDA went immediately on my birthday list - unfortunately the cost of using the mobile internet probably means I won't use it much! The PDAs in the study were run on an unlimited data contract and text and voice were disabled. Ultimately, text and voice should be billable to the students themselves while data is still paid for by the institution. I AM going to get one though.
Interesting to think of students accessing their assessments everywhere from hospital (are they actually allowed to use mobile devices in all hospitals?) to home to Tesco! (The pharmacists in the study were working on placement in supermarket pharmacies.)
Reasons for using mobile technology include:
* record assessment IN the workplace
* don't need to re-key anything later, e.g., reflections
* integrates with VLEs, e-portfolios, etc.
I learned more from this than from Dylan Wiliams keynote, also about assessment, because his was about assessment in the classroom. Still very important, but perhaps not as exciting as in Tesco!Labels: ALT-C2007, altc2007, inter-professional education, IPE, m-learning, mobile learning, PDAs, reusable learning objects, RLO
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:34 AM
