Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE and Learning Objects

Many academic digital collection projects are focused on special collections and college archives. Such projects seek to bring collections "out of the basement" and enable greater access to valuable and specialized research materials. However, undergraduate students and faculty often have very different needs and expectations of these digital materials than experienced researchers or the general public.

What does it take to implement a digital asset management system that not only improves access to collections but also allows faculty to integrate digital materials into their teaching? Teaching with digital collections means collection development that is driven by faculty needs, flexible presentation tools, and web interfaces that help students understand visual resources in context. Reed College’s IT and library will share their experiences in implementing a CONTENTdm-based digital image collection for the classics and humanities.

In a short 10 years, the Internet may not have "changed everything" as was predicted, but it certainly has impacted approaches to learning and learning facilitation. In this talk, Rob Abel, educational researcher and CEO of the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC), provides some insights on what we may have learned from the past 10 years and what it may mean for the next 10 years of learning technology and learning technology standards. Discussion topics will include IMS GLC's new focus on innovation, adoption, and, most important, learning impact. This talk will draw from the latest IMS GLC research in the satisfaction and use of learning technology in the U.S. higher education segment, indicating trends in digital content and learning platforms, and the most recent Learning Impact Awards.

Using Wiley & Edwards definition of a "learning object" as "any digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning" (2002), the NLII has been exploring what needs to happen for teaching and learning to become the sustained center of rhetoric in exploration of learning objects; and in particular, how learning objects relate to deeper learning principles.

An NLII Fall Focus Session on Learning Objects is being held to reflect on the assumptions and practices regarding the use of learning objects in higher education and in other related fields, explore emerging principles for their use for deeper learning, and investigate issues about and attributes of learning objects and the broader management of knowledge.

Learning objects are the buzz in instructional technology and library circles. Yet within the ranks of the faculty and the traditional educational professional organizations, learning objects are barely a blip on the radar screen. If we are going to effect change, we must engage our learners, but not enrage our faculty by coercing them into using an ill-conceived technological and pedagogical model. Metros will provide a framework to begin meaningful discussion on what learning objects are, how they can advance learning, and how instructional technology professionals, alongside educators, can lead a cultural shift that might just transform education.