L2O - Sharing Language Learning Objects
L2O project update - March 2007
Project name: L2O - Sharing Language Learning Objects
Region: South East
What aspects of your project are you most pleased about?
- Developing and sustaining a Community of Practice (CoP) of language teachers and learning technologists
- A prototype repository CLARe (Contextualised Learning Activity Repository - based on ePrints) has been piloted with a set of quality assured re-usable learning objects (RLOs) and pedagogical assets (PAs) contributed by members of our community of practice
- Realisation of the importance of contextual metadata in finding resources and in contributing to the creation of effective online resources (aspects of which are being further investigated in the subsequent Eduserv-funded MURLLO (Management, Use and Re-purposing of Language Learning Objects Project)
- Community-wide development and validation of 'Standard' RLLOMAP metadata enhancement to include the educational learning and teaching context (contextual metadata) by using task/asset description templates (contextual metadata templates) which use non-technical terminology
- Bespoke application profile created to incorporate contextual metadata in the educational fields of LOM metadata and create IMS compliant content package using EU and JISC-funded tools - Telcert, Schemaprof and Reload
- Development and implementation of the Pedagogical Process Model for Disaggregation of existing resources and re-aggregation into RLOs
- Influence of 'learnings' from the project on practice within CoP institutions (e.g. repository in Portsmouth; re-usable LOs at Surrey; integration of accessibility guidelines into online learning materials at Reading)
- Extension of the CoP through face-to-face interaction and also by fostering engagement through active participation in national and regional dissemination workshops focusing on issues around sharing and re-using online materials. In February 2007, the L2O Project flagship event 'Finding, sharing and re-using online resources: Personalising the experience for the teacher and the learner' - engaged with over 50 institutional/regional/national stakeholders and continued to substantiate earlier findings.
- Sustainability via L2O Research Community website (Focus on developing community tools for sharing and re-purposing language learning objects) and acting as a focal point for the community of practice
- Sustainability via projects which have directly arisen from the L2O Project - Eduserv-funded MURLLO, JISC-funded CLAReT (CLARe Tools) and JISC/HE Academy Del2- funded 'Proactive support mechanisms for online materials production (or Re-purposing materials)'
What are the main challenges that you've faced?
- Communication within the CoP: it is extremely effective in face-to-face situations but has faltered when pursued by other means (such as blogs, Moodle forums, Skyping etc).
- Approaching FE partners when tools and resources in an immature state.
- Time constraints on potential collaborators, particularly in FE due to teaching loads
- Standardising online material and ensuring its quality and accessibility so that it can be delivered as learning objects in the repository - inadequate proactive support mechanisms for re-purposing
- IPR issues, a serious barrier to sharing and re-purposing existing materials. The barrier is often at an institutional level particularly in the FE sector, the CoP over-whelmingly in the case of language teachers are enthusiastic to share/re-use/re-purpose existing materials
- Lack of a user-friendly, quick-to-use content packaging tool has meant that inputting of metadata is a laborious and unpleasant task
- Jorum - access and depositing issues due to complexities of partnerships.
- Jorum will not accept our content packages due to additional metadata fields
Based on the experiences of your project, what do you think needs to happen next in the education community to take forward work in your area of interest?
- Exploration and development of a user-friendly, intuitive content packaging tool which would also make the process of adding metadata easy
- Exploration of ways to automate the application of 'standard' metadata and encourage the addition of contextual metadata to aid the discovery of effective resources
- Better guidance on online IPR and copyright as these issues greatly affect the sharing of materials
- Further analysis of how institutional repositories can operate and enable the sharing of material within institutions
- The need to add context-rich metadata to assist teachers and learners in resource discovery and material selection (partially addressed by the MURLLO & CLAReT projects)
- The need for improving on and streamlining the processes involved in the selection, export and licensing of resources (partially addressed by the MURLLO project)
- The ease by which resources can be re-used or their ability to be re-purposed (partially addressed by the development of a wiki-type editing tool in development by the MURLLO project/partially addressed by Proactive Support Mechanism Project)
- Expand contextual metadata, capture information about intended use and actual use, community additions
- Expansion to other subject areas outside languages
- Community development via informal and formal folksonomies/taxonomies of contextual metadata search terms/descriptions (partially addressed by CLAReT)
Contact for further information
Email us - elang1@soton.ac.uk
