Elearning Quality for Learning Repositories in Secondary Education Elearning Quality for Learning Repositories in Secondary Education e-Learning Quality: Challenges and Perspectives in Greece and Europe Nov Riina European Schoolent

3 European Schoolnet 25 European Ministries of Education and/or National Agencies Developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe Facilitate eLearning Decision making by providing information on policy, strategy and school practice

What is a learning repository? A (web-based) distribution mechanism for learning resources A place to store learning resources and/or metadata about them Two types: –state/ministry/commercially owned –Organic networks based on voluntary exchange-based economy and open content

Provocative Statement European-wide learning repositories where commercial and content by- teachers-to teachers co-exists are rare – one does not trust the quality of the other? Quality of e-learning resources must be guaranteed – students are not test cases! Re-usability is the key to success!

Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

Quality aspects in the lifecycle of learning resources Creation and aggregation of LOs Factors to enhance the quality of searching Influencing the choice: how to choose the right one? Usability of resources based on users' evaluation Re-use and aggregation

Image by Frans Van Assche Life Cycle of a LO Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

9 Creation and aggregation of learning resources Guidelines to enhance re-usability, interoperability and transferability Technical: creation, technical choices, localisation possibilities Semantical: metadata to describe and help to match the need with supply Pedagogical: Is it inside or outside of the resource? Cultural: Curriculum compliant (national requirements, neutral?)

What do users need? How to match the content to the context? Templates for the creation of content –Platform independent aggregation –allow easy translation, i.e. separation of content and presentation Authoring tools to generate/insert metadata as automatically as possible Information about licensing (modification, commercial use, attribution, translation) –Creative Commons Licence, others...

Image by Frans Van Assche Life Cycle of a LO Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

Enhancing searching Usability of the interface –A variety of search methods –Better targeted searches (metadata) Recommendation based on a user profile Models based on previous behaviour Ratings by board of evaluators / users Quality labels, trusted sources Most downloaded item

Image by Frans Van Assche Life Cycle of a LO Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

Can I trust this item? Can one trust the content of the learning resource?; where is it originally from? is there any guarantee of the quality? Quality assessment procedures and selection policy for resources should be made available to all on the Internet - transparency Metadata could refer to that document.

Metadata about Quality Quality Statement, its origin and URL Internet Safety Statement and its URL Responsible body for creating the quality policy Responsible body for the actual selection and inclusion of resources Review of hyperlink Human review on the content

Image by Frans Van Assche Life Cycle of a LO Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

But do they learn? How learning resource can support metacognitive processes in learning? Do learning resources help learners to become aware of their cognitive skills such as problem solving skills and to become a critical and reflective learner? Do they support knowledge construction skills and sharing knowledge?

...and what do we know about that? Collecting feedback from users: – general/structured Focus on pedagogical ideas: –Attach individual lesson plans to resources Evaluations of transferability to –Different educational culture –Language –Pedagogical situation

Image by Frans Van Assche Life Cycle of a LO Image by Frans Van Assche, modified

Modify and dis/re- aggregate Licences allowing re-use and modification –Possibility to construct one's own knowledge –Small pieces more useful Ease of localisation and translations –Separation of content and images

We need new instruments! Recommendation and guidelines to create re-usable learning resources Pedagogical guidelines, re-use, innovation, transfer Recommendation system based on weighting different aspects of the lifecycle analysis