Introduction by Terry Mayes to Part 1 of Littlejohn, A. (2003) Reusing Online Resources: Vision and Theoretical Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract: Reading the five chapters in this part of the book has made me realize that, as is often the case with attitudes towards topics that are not often revisited, my view of learning objects was based on a simplified and rather crude version, based on assumptions not held at all by the writers in this part. Indeed, the concept that had originally provoked my antipathy towards learning objects is described in this part, not as a true learning object but rather, as a knowledge object by Rob Koper, as a content or information object by Dan Rehak and Robin Mason, and as an asset by Charles Duncan. Having established that learning objects can be tools or tests or even organizing resources, these three chapters all address the issue of how we can make these objects truly reusable in the support of a wide range of learning approaches, including the task-based methods of constructivist pedagogy (and thus the methods that would encourage structuring). Editor: Allison Littlejohn Notes: Reprinted with permission from: 'Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning', (Ed.) Allison Littlejohn. Kogan Page, London. ISBN 0749439491.

Keywords

• learning objects
• learning experiences
• attitude changes
• book introduction
• constructivism
• pedagogy
• automated instruction
• knowledge objects
• instructivism
• accretion
• structuring
• educational technology
• granularisation
• assumptions change