What is a learning object and how are the useful for my students?
A learning object is a digital, open educational resource that is created to assist in a learning event. Learning and reusability reside at its core. They differ from Open Educational Resources (OERs) in that their rights of use are more restrictive. See LO vs. OER for more information.
Examples
Animated map depicting European exploration in North America during the 16th century
Animated map to show the routes of European explorers from Spain, Portugal, France and Britain and their discoveries during the 16th century.
MLA Style 01: Citing Sources in MLA Style: A Basic Introduction
Librarian explains how to cite sources according to the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook in an engaging and personal manner.
Managing Your Business : Managing Inventory
A good example of using a visual story to teach material. It takes the lesson and applies it in an entertaining and “real-life” scenario.
Demand Versus Price and Quantity – an interactive tool
The Supply and Demand interactive graph tool is a hands-on tool for students to see the immediate effects on demand when supply goes up or down.
Why use Learning Objects
LOs are often used in teaching of troublesome concepts or to illustrate content and engage learners. Educators use learning objects for a variety of reasons. Learning Objects can:
- help clarify a learning objective.
- assist learners to solve problems or explore subject areas in different ways. This allows learners with different learning styles to explore different paths to a solution, enhancing the learning experience for all.
- allow educators to give learners access to materials they may otherwise not physically be able to access.
- make a lesson more engaging and interesting.
Using learning objects, and sharing with others, give educators and developers an opportunity to collaborate and engage in a community of practice to enhance learning environments and the craft of teaching.
See the learning object video (takes time to load) for an explanation of why to use learning objects and where to find them.
Use in Learning
There are some arguments that learning objects lack substance, because to enable it to be reusable the context in which it was originally used needs to be minimal. This paradox refers to an object’s granularity. The more granular a learning object is, the more reusable it is in other contexts. The more integrated a learning object is, the less reusable it is in other contexts.
less granular = more context = less reusable okay
more granular = less context = more reusable better
A learning object without its educative context is meaningless. Whereas a learning object that has a clear and detailed learning design will counter this challenge. The metadata connected to an object that can help provide the context of a learning object.
Learning Design
The learning design is the description of the educational context (where and how) in which the object is used. It may take the form of an learning objective.
Readings
- DELT. (2006). Learning Object Repository Report: Draft (April, 2006). Distance Education and Learning Technologies. St. John’s: DELT.
- Friesen, N. (2009). Open Source Resources in Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Retrieved from https://timreview.ca/article/271
- Littlejohn, A. & Buckingham Shum, S. (2003). (Eds.) Reusing Online Resources. (Special Issue) Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2003 (1). Retrieved from https://jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2003-1-reuse-01
- McGreal, R. (2008). A Typology of Learning Object Repositories. In Handbook of Information Technologies for Education and Training 2nd Edition. Adelsberger, Pawlowski and Sampson (editors) Springer: Berlin Heidelberg.
- Wiley, D. A. (2002). Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy. In D. Wiley (Ed.), The instructional use of learning objects. Bloomington, ID: Agency for Instructional Technology and Association for Communications & Technology. Retrieved from https://members.aect.org/publications/InstructionalUseofLearningObjects.pdf
Originally Published: August 21, 2018
Last Updated: July 16, 2024
