Reusable
Learning Objects (RLOs)
Reusable Learning Objects - often referred to as simply,
"Learning Objects" - are self-contained portions of educational
content. The concept is to use these portions, or "chunks"
of learning to assemble larger educational materials for
use in courses. These chucks of learning material are
collected in repositories and shared across computer networks,
including the Internet. The sharing of these materials
is referred to as shared-(or open)content. In this way,
faculty are welcome to use others' materials rather than
develop all digital or on-line material themselves. Material
may be used not only for specific courses, but across
disciplines as well.
Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) are modular, reusable,
and retrievable.
 The modular characteristic means
a learning object is self-contained. The learning value
is inherent in the object. An object could be a document,
a presentation, Java applet, other multimedia, or even
a digital image - as long as it provides some educational
value. More often than not, it would be more substantial
than a single digital image, and may contain mixed media
content, such as this tutorial on learning objects found
at http://www.eduworks.com/LOTT/tutorial/.
Reusable means other educators may
use it and that it can be used for more than one course
or discipline. For example, I might use an animation
illustrating Photosynthesis, such as in this Flash animation
found at Merlot, authored by Dr. John Giannini
from St. Olaf College). This object may be useful
in a high school or college biology, or botany class.
Retrievable means the learning object
needs to be classified, stored in an accessible location,
and easily searched for across domains. In order to
accomplish this there needs to be an agreed upon classification
system, as well as a standard platform. The standard
platform accepted by the Learning
Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) of the IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)is
to use Metadata tags within XML (eXtensible Markup Language).
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