• Online
  Degrees
• Online
  Programs
• Online
  Courses
• Online
  Colleges
• Campus
  Programs
• eLearners
  Advisor
• Articles &
  Resources
• Blogs &
  Forums

What Does the Future Hold for Online Education?

What Does the Future Hold for Online Education?

Guide to Online Education > Online Education Trends > What The Future Holds > Online Education and Reusable Learning Objects

1. Growth of Online Education Abroad
2. Online Learning and K-12 Education
3. Online Education and Reusable Learning Objects
4. Standards of Excellence for Online Education

---

3Online Education and Reusable Learning Objects

Before the advent of Internet, knowledge resided in two places: in a book or in the mind. To learn about a particular subject, your choices were either to read about it or to ask an expert.

The World Wide Web launched a knowledge revolution. Anyone with Internet access can upload and share information online with anyone else across the world. With regards to higher education, the Internet provides an opportunity for professors and instructors to share information with one another by means of “reusable learning objects”, also providing students with tangential information not particular to a course.

A simple way to describe reusable learning objects is to compare them to Lego blocks. Instead of creating buildings, reusable learning objects could be assembled to create a single lesson or an entire online course. A reusable learning object might take the form of a:

• case study
• simulation
• photographic slideshow
• PowerPoint presentation
• video demonstration
• web-based tutorial
• written composition

Essentially, reusable learning objects can be anything teachers create in an electronically that can be delivered online.

Of course, this requires some thought about how the learning object should be designed, presented, and stored. But, that process makes for a better learning tool and the additional planning helps keep files, folder and information organized.

The teacher (or teachers, if they share) can reuse a learning object in any course. It provides opportunities for remedial learning and review by students and frees an instructor from having to reinventing the course over and over. The location of reusable learning objects can be within school’s intranet or, at the larger, Internet level. There are already websites that make learning objects freely available to everyone so that they can be utilized. Reusable learning objects will become more popular in the future as course designers and instructors increasingly turn to the Internet, as well as books and brains.

Related links:

• MERLOT - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
• Wisconsin Online Resource Center
• Maricopa Learning Exchange

---

Previous page 1 2 3 4 Next page

Distance Learning Discussion Forums
Online Degrees