Creating
Online Learning Content 

 

Creating Learning Objects

Content is broken down into chunks called learning objects.

From a learning perspective, each learning object might play a specific role within an instructional design methodology.

The requirements for each learning object are to be able to communicate with learning systems using a standardized method that does not depend on the system.

• What happens within a learning object is the learning object's business ie. all facilitating componentry, multi-media files etc, must be inside the learning object.
• How a learner moves between learning objects is controlled by the learning system.  This way the educator is in control of the order of input.
• Each learning object must have a description that enables instructional designers to search for and find the right learning object for the right job.
  
  
• There is no standard for the size (or granularity) of a learning object.  Larger learning objects are typically harder to reuse, and smaller learner objects save less work for those who are reuse them.   
   
• As per the literature of pedagogy, the happy medium has been estimated as between five and fifteen minutes of learning material.

Quality online learning experiences.

A basic problem faced by the learning community is how to produce and deliver quality content for quality online learning experiences.

This tutorial examines this problem   = => > >

Online learning content typically contains:

• Text, graphics, and movies
• A navigation scheme (easily a table of contents and/or buttons)
• Assessments
  
  It may also contain collaboration tools as well as other interactive elements and graphical elements designed to produce a unified or branded look and feel, but the above list is basic.

Another Great Resource for eTrainers: The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability Bi-weekly column by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group Subscribe here

DESIGN GUIDES

Not only do eTrainers need to learn how to engage students online - there are also many web usability design issues to comes to terms with.  The following is some of the best of these design resources available on the internet today: