DEVELOPING E-LEARNING LESSONS

Pierfranco Ravotto - ITSOS “Marie Curie”

Index

Developing E-learning Lessons..............................................................................................................................1

Pierfranco Ravotto - ITSOS “Marie Curie”..........................................................................................................1

Index.........................................................................................................................................................................1Towards a Knowledge Society...............................................................................................................................2Online learning scenarios ......................................................................................................................................3

Two types, four scenarios......................................................................................................................................3Relations with learning materials and with people in different scenarios ..........................................................3eLearning and the Internet potential ..................................................................................................................4Planning eLearning: learning materials and environments ................................................................................4

Materials suitable for eLearning ..........................................................................................................................5

The functions of materials in traditional Distance Learning ..............................................................................5The functions of materials in vitual class and collaborative learning environments .........................................5Learning Object and Standards............................................................................................................................5SCOs and SCORMs..............................................................................................................................................6Meta Data..............................................................................................................................................................7

Types of Learning Objects.....................................................................................................................................7

Lessons..................................................................................................................................................................7Interactive lessons.................................................................................................................................................7Tests and exercises with electronic feedback .......................................................................................................7Individual work ....................................................................................................................................................8Project work..........................................................................................................................................................8

Developing materials in the view of Open Source...............................................................................................8Works Cited...........................................................................................................................................................10

Towards a Knowledge Society

Planning and developing effective eLearning materials is one of the elements that can help achieve one of theobjectives set by the

Lisbon

European Council

, March 2002:

“The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade:

to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in theworld, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion

.”

It is just after that Council that the European Commission launched the

eLearning Action Plan

in March 2001where eLearning is defined as

“the use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the qualityof learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration

.…The first aim of the eLearning initiative is to accelerate the deployment in the European Union of a highquality infrastructure at a reasonable cost. With this in mind, it adopts and adds to the objectives of eEurope,namely:



to provide all schools with access to the Internet and multimedia resources by the end of 2001, and toequip all classrooms with a fast Internet connection by the end of 2002;

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to connect all schools to research networks by the end of 2002;

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to achieve a ratio of 5-15 pupils per multimedia computer by 2004;

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to ensure the availability of support services and educational resources on the Internet, together withonline learning platforms for teachers, pupils and parents, by the end of 2002;



to support the evolution of school curricula with the aim of integrating new learning methods based oninformation and communication technologies by the end of 2002.”

Even if the objectives set for 2002 were probably too ambitious and have not been totally achieved yet, it isclear that schools and teachers are now required to make a big effort in terms of planning, training andchanging of attitudes in order to be able to manage, at its best, the emerging new learning context.Elearning is not and cannot be any longer a field of interest only for those who have been involved in DistanceLearning: it is now the time to

integrate face-to-face learning and eLearning

.This is the context where the theme of developing e-learning lessons places itself and it is the subject of the present contribution which originates from the following experiences:



teaching activities and didactic/pedagogical research carried out by ITSOS “Marie Curie” in Cernusco inthe last 30 years with their 1300 students,

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the delivery of e-learning activities integrating face - to- face dimension implemented by more and moreteachers in the last decade,

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the SiR Net, with 7 nodes and 5000 users, developed, managed and implemented by ITSOS in cooperationwith numerous Milanese schools. Such a net has proved to be a powerful tool for eLearning andCollaborative Learning for hundreds of teachers,



the research on ODL and eLearning issues done by ITSOS, as a promoter, in cooperation with numerousItalian and European partners in the European projects SOFIA, Sofi@net and SOLE within Leonardo daVinci Programmme,



experiences derived from the SiR 2 project, financed by European Social Funds and carried out by ITSOSwithin an Italian partnership. On such an occasion 120 teachers have been trained,

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last but not least, the activities performed in the BiTE project where eLearning materials for mathematicshave been developed.This report is the result of reflections on the experiences carried out and it aims to identify and overcome their limits and offer useful hints for further projects.

1 Lisbon European Council, 23 and 24 march 2000, Presidency conclusions, <http://europa.eu.int/european_council/conclusions/index_en.htm>

eLearning Action Plan, March 2001, eLearning Action Plan.pdf, page 2

eLearning Action Plan, March 2001, eLearning Action Plan.pdf, page 3

Online learning scenarios

Learning always occurs in a relational context. The learner establishes relations, as the case may be, with thelearning materials, with the teacher that is delivering the course or with the tutor supporting his/her training,and finally with the peer group that shares his/her own experience.ELearning materials require to be suitable for the context where they will be used; such a context can be either imposed by circumstances or chosen by the training designers.

Two types, four scenarios

As we wrote, at the conclusion of a project which offered an eLearning course to 120 teachers –over 95% of them successfully completed it after a nine-month activity!!- “

it is possible to identify 2 fundamental types of eLearning”:

Individual

Such a type allows the maximum of opening –up and flexibility, both in terms of objectives and content, and time ( its beginning and end, its duration).The path can be tailorised according to the specific trainees’ needs.Obviously, trainees are “alone” in their learning path as there is no a peer groupthey can establish relations with and whom/by whom they can give/receive support.Two different scenarios can be identified:



Self-learning

: where no tutorship is foreseen or it is limited to guidance aspectsconcerning the definition of the course or the use of ICTs; learning materials arein charge of delivering the content.

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Supported self-learning

: where a systematic relation with the tutor occurs and it also concerns learning contents.

Group

One of the big advantages of group learning is represented by the reciprocal support and incitement that the participants can offer one another. In order to work in group it is obviously necessary to share objectives and contents aswell as deadlines; the extent of “freedom” is inferior to the one experienced inindividual learning paths. ELearning provides more flexibility than face-to-face learning that asks for anidentical schedule (only chats or web conferencse require learners to be connected at the same time). Nevertheless, it is necessary to share the same phases of work and consequently the same deadlines. Also in this case it is possible to identify two scenarios:



Virtual class:

where the peer group follows a path that is somehow pre-defined and that is based on learning materials prepared in advance, with a tutor whoserole is similar to the one of a teacher in a face-to-face situation.



Online collaborative learning

: where the content to learn is not pre-defined, but on the contrary the learners themselves share a task to be fullfilled or a result tobe achieved and they organise themselves searching for available informationand learning contents that are being defined step by step and that are relevant tothe goal.



Here, the tutor plays the role of a consultant or of a “project manager”, just the same role that he/she would play in a face-to face class involved in a project work.

Relations with learning materials and with people in different scenarios

In a

self-learning scenario

learning materials obviously need to be “complete” and “self-consistent”, as theyare required to perform several functions such as:

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to delivery content (possibly in an interactive/dialogue form),

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to provide and support motivation,

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to allow electronic self- check and feedback.