The document discusses educational portals and learning object repositories. It describes four dimensions of educational portals: community, content, management, and news. It provides examples of portals for each dimension. It then discusses learning objects and learning object repositories, which allow standardized digital learning resources to be shared. The document outlines considerations for developing a learning object repository and describes the development of Estonia's learning object repository called Koolielu 2.0.

1. ì
Educational
Portals:
trends
and
issues
Mart
Laanpere,
head
of
Centre
for
Educa3onal
Technology,
Tallinn
University

2. Four
dimensions
of
educational
portals
ì Community:
teacher
networking,
discussions,
ad-­‐hoc
groups
ì Content:
learning
resources,
lesson
plans
ì Management:
official
documents,
curriculum,
guidelines,
valida3on,
accountability
ì News:
aggrega3ng
school-­‐related
news,
events,
research
results,
job
offers,
course
offerings
for
teachers

3. Examples
ì Community-­‐oriented:
etwinning.eun.org
ì Content-­‐oriented:
KlasCement.net
ì Management-­‐oriented:
CurriculumOnline.gov.uk
ì News-­‐oriented:
elearningeuropa.info

4. Learning
Objects
ì The
concept
of
“educa3onal
soJware”
did
not
work
(lockdown)
ì Learning
objects:
re-­‐usable
and
searchable
digital
objects
(e.g.
texts,
images,
video
clips)
with
pedagogical
purpose
and
metadata
(3tle,
type,
descrip3on,
language,
target
group,
difficulty…),
separated
from
the
soJware
video
image
metadata
Informa3on
Objects
(assets)
Learning
Pedagogical
Object
scenario
Course

5. Learning
Object
Repositories
ì Problems:
ì teachers
(re)create
millions
of
digital
learning
resources
(DLR)
every
year,
few
can
be
found
or
accessed
by
other
teachers
ì As
quan33es
of
DLRs
go
up,
quality
goes
down
ì Difficult
to
reuse
without
adapta3on
(closed
formats)
ì Solu3on:
Learning
Object
Repository
(LOR),
online
database
for
standardised,
annotated
and
evaluated
Learning
Objects
ì LOR
is
not
a
learning
environment:
school
library
metaphor

6. Decision
points
for
a
new
LOR
project
ì Repository
vs
“referratory”
ì Media/LO
types,
formats
(e.g.
video,
tests,
SCORM)
ì Scope:
only
general/comprehensive
educa3on?
ì Localisa3on:
na3onal
vs
global
ì Hosted
by
the
MoE,
NGO,
company,
university
ì Subject
coverage:
generic
vs
domain-­‐specific
ì Contributors,
user
roles

7. The
main
issues
to
be
solved
ì Metadata
applica9on
profile:
balancing
global
(IEEE
LOM,
EUN
LRE)
and
local
perspec3ves
(school
system,
curriculum
structure,
domain
categories)
ì Integra9on
and
interoperability
with
other
systems
(e.g.
Moodle
or
repository
federa3ons):
standards,
specifica3ons,
interfaces
(SQI,
SPI),
protocols
(OAI/PMH)
ì Quality
assurance:
by
users,
by
moderators/reviewers,
built-­‐in
edi3ng/assessment
workflows
ì Licensing
of
LOs:
copyright
vs
copyleJ,
Crea3ve
Commons

8. The
story
of
Estonian
LOR
ì 1997:
a
private
ini3a3ve
Miksike
(miksike.ee),
e-­‐worksheets
ì 1999:
Tallinn
Pedagogical
University
builds
the
portal
Teachers’
Netgate
for
Tiger
Leap
Founda3on
(community-­‐oriented,
CF)
ì 2001:
News-­‐oriented
TLF
portal
koolielu.ee,
commercial
CMS
ì 2008:
Helsinki
UAD
MediaLab
and
Tallinn
University
(TLU)
team
develop
LeMill.net
(within
FP6
project
Calibrate)
ì 2009:
the
new
version
Koolielu
2.0
is
developed
by
TLU
team

9. Koolielu
2.0:
concept
ì Balance
between
three
main
dimensions:
community,
content,
news
(management
was
not
considered
priority
ini3ally)
ì Web
2.0
principles:
users
as
content
creators,
friends,
ac3vity
stream,
tags,
RSS,
dashboard
(iGoogle
style),
widgets,
embedding,
recommenders
ì Tight
integra3on
with
LOR
(Waramu)
and
federa3on
with
LRE
ì Par3cipatory
design,
accompanied
by
research
(design
sessions
to
validate
scenarios,
paper/early/full
prototypes)

10. Koolielu
2.0:
services
ì News
–
aggregated
from
various
online
sources
ì Adver9sements
–
course
offerings
and
job
search
ì Tools
–
recommended
online
tools
or
downloadable
soJware
ì Resources
–
repository
of
learning
objects
ì Discussions
–
tradi3onal
online
forum
ì Communi9es
–
every
user
can
ini3ate
an
ad-­‐hoc
community
which
will
get
automa3cally
a
dedicated
collabora3on
space,
forum
and
other
collabora3on
tools

11. Koolielu
2.0:
technical
platform
ì Adapta3on
of
Elgg:
an
open
source
(PHP/MySQL)
social
media
plajorm,
see
elgg.org
ì Learning
Object
Repository
Waramu
was
made
by
TLU
for
an
earlier
project
(MELT),
now
it
was
integrated
with
Elgg
ì Waramu
is
Java-­‐based
middleware
applica3on,
no
user
interface,
Service-­‐Oriented
Architecture
ì Simple
Query
Interface,
Simple
Publishing
Interface,
OAI/PMH
target
for
metadata
harves3ng
by
EUN
LRE

12. Koolielu
2.0:
management
ì One
full-­‐3me
chief
editor,
two
part-­‐3me
editors/journalists
ì 17
subject
moderators
(1-­‐2
for
each
main
subject
area):
experienced
teachers,
working
on-­‐distance
ì Training
for
teachers:
included
in
the
main
course
DigiTiger
ì Ac3vi3es:
Compe33ons,
theme
weeks,
learning
events,
courses

13. Koolielu
2.0:
future
plans
ì Elgg
version
upgrade
(from
1.6
to
1.8)
ì Professional
development
porjolio
module
ì Self-­‐assessment
tool
DigiSelf
ì Integra3on
with
other
systems
(EHIS,
KIS,
EKIS)
ì Single
Sign-­‐On
support
(OAuth,
OpenID,
ID-­‐card)
ì Embeddable
players
for
specific
content:
SCORM,
QTI
tests,
CommonCartridge