Janja Jakončič Faganel teaches in Slovenia. She is a member of the advisory group. In her country she was a member of a piloting team dealing with learning object repository and ways of embedding certain information within these objects.
This information is “metadata” and it is essential when searching the Internet for quality resources to be used in teaching. In this article Janja argues that teachers are able to design good teaching and learning modules. A basic condition to find them on the Net is to tag them appropriately, meaning that they need to know how to associate basic information to the objects in such a way to be searchable and findable on the Net.
“I am tired of searching on Google and finding long list of items which I need to brows to find what I am interested in. Give me something more palpable, ready to be used with one mouse click…” (Anonymous teacher attending a seminar in Slovenia, two years ago).
This was the moment of truth for me: why electronic learning material is not used by teachers. The puzzled call for help totally changed my point of view about this matter. In 2004, together with other Math and ICT experts, I joined the Research Group for quality of e-material at National Education Institute of Slovenia. It has been a very busy period with many struggles and discoveries. Now I know that teachers need a special care while doing their job of teaching.
Every teacher has to decide
The learning resources are more and more frequently used on all levels of education, including the early education. The resources are prepared and implemented in teaching and learning by teachers themselves. A survey, conducted within teachers’ groups, has showed that teachers do not use enough of the resources made available by other colleagues. Nevertheless they claim they need suitable teaching resources to be then incorporated into their curriculum. Interviews with teachers showed that teachers are often driven away by two facts:
When searching for a certain school subject teachers are confronted with a lot of items which are displayed in their browser; that means it is difficult to find and choose the ones to fulfill the request; The first experience with the digital resources in the class is important; a inadequate quality may discourage teachers.
Information portal
So it is essential to set up a portal to serve as a gateway to various educational digital resources. Electronic teaching materials should be collected, described properly and equipped with suitable metadata by a professional institution or group. The cataloging system would provide an instant, simple and rewarding access to the items stored in an online repository. This is the first step in providing useful electronic materials for teachers.
Learning Objects
Before designing teaching and learning modules, the authors must understand what a learning object (LO) is. Any digital unit with the aim of learning or learning path is called a learning object (LO).
I have been a member of a research group in Slovenia and we agreed to classify the digital resources as follows:
• Technical unit • Learning Unit (LO) • Course (LO)
According to us a technical unit is usually a MIME unit (text, image, sound) or a set of them packed in one or more files (PowerPoint presentation, Word document, HTML file).
If the technical unit is equipped with a description of the aim of LO it is called Learning Unit. This is the most useful material and usually made by an ICT expert teacher. Such units are usually available on the Internet. Many of them are not stored in a proper database and accompanied by relevant metadata. They are often used only by their authors. In order to promote the use of ICT in learning process it is very important to collect and evaluate the learning units. Teachers should start to use learning units of a good quality to feel comfortable and satisfied while working with them. Once they have seen that such digital resources improve teaching and learning, they will use them more frequently and many of them will start building their owns.
A course is a set of learning units with a proper description of the learning path that is a more complex learning material, usually made by a group of ICT professionals based on scenarios prepared by teachers. Such types of materials are usually used by advanced users in e-learning with or without help of a tutor for a longer period.
The quality of LOs
Different types of LOs lead to different input of metadata and of course a different level of quality criteria. Undoubtedly collecting metadata is not an option anymore although it is time consuming for the author. It is urgent and significant for providing a useful catalogue of LOs.
Furthermore, in order to provide good resources an evaluation system should be available. Two evaluation stages may be essential:
• Users’ feedback (reports on applicability of described LOs in teaching and learning process) • Technical and content evaluation by qualified evaluators.
Technical and content quality
According to the results of investigation my group proposes the following quality assessment criteria for the LOs:
• didactical quality (didactics, learning goals, learning methods, assessment), • user interface (orientation, tracking possibility, navigation, user support, working support), • quality of implementation (text, graphics, multimedia, readability, correctness, organization of screen), • technical quality and compatibility (simplicity of installation, accessibility, registration, start-up, set-up and de-installation). • quality of the content
My group also recommends separate evaluations for technical attributes and content. The evaluation questionnaires should be adjusted to each type of LO. For content evaluation it is essential to develop and adjust a questionnaire separately for every single subject.
LO production
Many teachers in Europe would be willing to create such objects if quality criteria and practice examples are provided. A quality mark award may increase teachers’ motivation to get involved in. The latest outcomes in the field may also help teachers to properly tag the objects by incorporated standard metadata.
The first step has been already made by the myEUROPE Project. It provides a set of objects organised around a main theme: European citizenship. These teachers are creative and they know how to pull down barriers they face while integrating ICT in their daily teaching.
