Cherchez the ‘Learning Object’ Workshop November 2007

David Millard,

Gary Wills, (Yvonne Howard)

Learning Societies Lab

University of Southampton

Julie Watson, Ann Jeffery,

Kate Borthwick, (Kate Dickens)

eLanguages

University of Southampton

Welcome!

Objectives

• For us to show you what the Claret and Murllo projects have produced

• For you to have a chance to try the tools and give us your feedback

• To discuss the future of these tools – we are preparing to deploy a useable public version and we want to find out the best shape for it!

Structure of the Day9:30 Arrive (coffees)

10:00 -10:30 Introduction

10:30 – 12:30 CLAReT tools (refreshments available from 11:00)

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch (is in building 32)

13:30 - 14:00 Introduction to afternoon session

14:00 – 15:00 MURLLO tools

15:00 – 15:15 Faroes briefing

15:15 – 4pm Feedback and Discussion

4pm End

CLAReT and MURLLO

CLARET• CLARE Tools• JISC Funded• Develop Usability Tools for the CLARE

Repository

MURLLO• Management, Use and Re-purposing of

Language Learning Objects• EduServ Funded• Develop Tools to help facilitate the creation

and sharing of Learning objects

CLARE

• Version of ePrints (the Open Access Repository)

• Developed by the L2O (Sharing Language Learning Objects) project

• MURLLO (Management, Use and Re-purposing of Language Learning Objects) is a project looking at how we can encourage the reuse of Learning Objects (LOs) (IPR, Online Editing, etc)

The Problem

General practitioner' teachers and lecturers [who] are increasingly clear about their need for meaningful contextual information about the resource to enable them to assess it and reuse it. A particularly popular request is for some kind of review process that allows users of the resource to record their usage and evaluation of it for others to examine

(Rehak & Mason, 2003, Casey 2004).

These requirements make clear the need for new conceptions of learning object meta-data, and new ways of using repositories—not just for search and retrieval, but as a living, growing body of shared practice.

(Casey, Brosnan & Geller, 2005)

How do you know what LOs to reuse?

– How can you find them?– How can you trust them?– How can you provide feedback?

– How do we create a living, growing body of shared practice?

CLAReT Aims

• To create tools foster community involvement and to enable that living body of shared practice

• In practical terms:– Developing tools to improve CLARE’s usability

• To make LO discovery easier?• To help people share LOs?• To expose LO history to help people judge quality?

– Looking at Social Computing (Web 2.0) features• Harnessing the wisdom of crowds (ala Wikipedia)• Taking the best practise of repository interface design

MURLLO Tools

• Developed three tools– Learning Object Editing Tool– Learning Object Metadata Editing Tool– Learning Object Shopping Trolley

• Wiki-based Editors• Interaction with multiple

repositories

Claret Tools• A Concept Map Browser

– To help people find things that they may not be able to articulate

• Enhanced Search– Promiscuous search! No blank walls– Return as much as possible, but ordered

• Comments and Ratings– Gives LOs some provenance– Further info on what contexts they have been used in

• Everything is interlinked– Highly connected metadata – (e.g. click on a keyword to get all the items marked with that keyword)

• Enhanced Front Page– Open and inviting rather than an imposing search box– Suggested LOs (high rated, most recently added, etc).

• Aim: to explore the new features in the repository

• Role play in scenarios– Why are we doing it this way?– We have chosen typical user roles as personas– Each persona has a scenario that is typical of their activities

• We will ask each of you to choose a persona that you can relate to– Work in pairs (so two personas between you)– Work through the scenario using Clare

Hands on Activity: Using Clare

Scenarios

Chrissie (teacher)

Louise (independent

learner)

Lyn (course designer)

Roland (teacher on sabbatical)

Ruth (teaching assistant)

Tom (secondary

school teacher)

Have fun!

• Take a look around and choose a persona, and another person to work with

• We have given out a questionnaire, feel free to fill it in as you go or wait until the end

• Start when you’re ready…

• http://clare3.eprints.org

http://dash.ecs.soton.ac.uk/murllo/