Designing Digital Resources

Designing Digital Resources

Fernando Posada Prieto (2012) starts his article by pointing out the importance of digital resources for educators, educational institutions, students, and all important stakeholders involved in the learning process. For teachers, digital resources provide an easy way to help their students learn, and for supervisors, these resources provide an opportunity to access the content presented in class. For students, these digital resources provide an opportunity to practice and learn relevant content both in class, and outside of the school environment. 

https://elearningindustry.com/4-best-practices-delivery-digital-learning-resources 

User Context

Posada Prieto (2012) explains that, at least in this article, digital learning resources are meant to be used in the classroom. Each student needs to have access to a computer or digital device, and teachers must always provide support for the student, and work to facilitate student's interaction with the material and devices. Digital learning resources are only a tool, if we just assign an activity to our students but don't follow up or provide feedback, the resource is not effective. 

http://www.imsglobal.org/seamlessplugplayintegration.html 

Curricular Design

Before even considering the design of a learning resource, we need to consider the curriculum: learning objectives, content, and testing methods that will be used to assess the learning outcomes. Posada Prieto (2012) suggests to base the learning objectives on the official curriculum, so that learning outcomes meet the standards presented by official sources and the digital learning resources can be then considered successful. Here's a list of the most important aspects to consider when designing curriculum for digital resources.

Learning Digital Resources Characteristics

According to Posada Prieto (2012), before embarking on a race to design digital resources, we need to check and evaluate previews digital repositories to determine if the material we plan to create is not available already. After this, we can start the designing process, and make sure that our digital resources include the following characteristics:

Digital Learning Object

Posada Prieto (2012) describes a learning object as content presented in digital form with three main characteristics: It seeks to facilitate student's learning. It is an individual object, independent of other objects. It can be integrated with other objects to create a larger body of resources.

http://ipgkpm.edu.my/KDLO/ 

Types of Digital Learning Objects According to the previous definition, we can identify the following types of DLO: DLO Media: The smallest unit, it cannot be divided, e.g. an image, a video, etc. DLO Integrated Media: It results from the integration of various media. DLO Learning Object: It results from combining different media objects with specific actions, like matching pictures, etc. DLO Learning Unit: It results from combining different elements of DLO in a learning sequence. DLO Learning Program: It combines different learning units and follows specific objectives and planning. DLO Educational Resource: It results from the combination of different learning programs related to a specific topic.

Design Principles for Digital Learning Objects

Here's a list of the most important principles we should follow when designing a DLO according to Posada Prieto (2012). 

Some of the ideas for this list were taken from the University of Toronto Library. https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/digitalpedagogy

Conclusions

I hadn't used Goconqr.com before and I have to say I really enjoyed organizing content with it. It is a good example of how a tool can help us enhance the learning experience. The article by Fernando Posada Prieto (2012) provided great pedagogical background and resources for designing digital learning objects. It also reminded us of the importance of considering our learning objectives when deciding what resources to use, and that students should be able to interact with relevant content, not just a flashy object in order to be able to have a meaningful learning experience. I will include goconqr.com in my classes to provide students with another tool to help them in their learning process.

References

Diseño de Recursos Digitales Educativos. CanalTIC.com. Posada Prieto, Fernando (27 de marzo, 2012) Retrieved on March 12, 2019 http://canaltic.com/blog/?p=889#dao5  Digital Pedagogy - A Guide for Librarians, Faculty, and Students . University of Toronto Libraries. (Jan 21, 2019) Retrieved on March 16, 2019. https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=448614&p=3529576 4 Best Practices In Delivery Of Digital Learning Resources. Kalamara, Kate. (Aug 1, 2015) Retrieved on March 12, 2019. https://elearningindustry.com/4-best-practices-delivery-digital-learning-resources