The request for new learning resources

Where are they?

Leo Højsholt-PoulsenUNI•C

The Danish IT Centre for Education and Research

Denmark

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•MANY titles•FEW users

Digital learning resources

The learning ressourceof the 21 Century:

But let us suppose that digital learning resources are the future

At least one digital ressource has documented its impact:

From

Wikimedia Commons

The Internet

Most countries:• Learning resources for schools are paid by ‘public’ money

– in one way or the other• Numerous national support programmes

Public support strategies to digital learning resources1. To providers?2. To end-users?

In some countries the Government provides a free set of digital learning resources, e.g.:

• Korea ( - www.edunet4u.net) [1+2]• Hungary ( - sdt.sulinet.hu)

[1+2]• Also initiatives in France, Spain and Norway [1]• Austria and Italy [2]

Digital learning resources – Public vs. Private

Include content• to help beginners

Be open• to allow for new content

A new digital learning resource should

Unawareness of the opportunities is often a major barrier to progress

It must be easier to:

•Find•Share•Use•educational materials of all kinds

Where are the users ?Where are the learning resources ?

Repositories bridge the gap between providers and users

producer

teacher

Viola!

Repositories of learning resources

External bases with collections and materials

Producers: Register, update, upload, search, read statistics on usage

Teachers, librarians, students etc.: Search, browse, download, upload, feed-back

Repository

• Repositories are key disseminators of information of available learning resources • In repositories users search or browse for relevant resources

(text books, websites, digital learning resources etc.) among the vast supply on the market

• The national repository of Danish learning resources• Materialeplatformen

– 24.000 learning resources of all types (books – digital media – museum exhibits etc.)

– from professional publishers to teachers

• Learning resources from Danish museums and science centres• E-Museum

• The national link repository• Fagenes Infoguide

- 10.000 links to websites for education- categorized by type of school and subject- evaluated by experienced teachers

- There are many different types of educational repositories in various countries

What is an educational repository? - the Danish situation illustrates the broad concept of educational repositories

EdReNe NetworkEdReNe Network

EdReNe is a thematic network cEdReNe is a thematic network co-funded by the European Uniono-funded by the European Union, , through the eContentthrough the eContentplusplus programme programme

EdReNe – Educational Repositories NetworkFounding members

• UNI•C (Denmark)

• EUN – European Schoolnet (Europe)

• EENET - European Expert's Network for Education and Technology (Europe)

• Menon Network (Europe)

• EDEN - European Distance and E-Learning Network (Europe)

• FWU - Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (Germany)

• UPF - Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain)

• TLF - Tiger Leap Foundation (Estonia)

• UNI-LJ-FMF, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Uni. of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

• ITC - Centre of IT in Education (Lithuania)

• Skolverket - The Swedish National Agencyfor Education (Sweden)

• ENIS Austria (Austria)

• NCTE –National Centre for Technology in Education (Ireland)

• Kennisnet – Sticting Kennisnet Ict op School (The Netherlands)

• Becta - British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (UK)

• CNDP - Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique (France)

• Giunti Interactive Labs (Italy)

• BFU- Brancheforeningen for undervisningsmidler (Denmark)

• AIE - Associazione Italiana Editori (Italy)

• EduLearn (Portugal)

• sDae - Sociedad Digital De Autores Y Esitores (Spain)

• IML - Umeå University Department of Interactive Media and Learning (Sweden)

Associated members

• Utdanning.no (Norway)

• Utdanningsdirektoratet (Norway)

• VETAMIX (Finland)

• Lektion.se (Sweden)

• Intrallect Ltd  (UK)  

• SLO - Netherland’s Institute for Curriculum Development  (The Netherlands) 

• CTIE - Centre suisse des technologies de l'information dans l'enseignement (Switzerland)

• APS IT-diensten (The Netherlands)

• TLU-CET - Talinn University (Estonia)

• CTE - Centre de technologie de l'éducation (Luxembourg)

• Ontwikkelcentrum (The Netherlands)

• LTScotland, Learning and Teaching Scotland (UK)

• Encyclopaedia Britannica Education (UK)

• DGIDC –Ministry of Education (Portugal)

• ALLIANZ S.p.A. (Italy)• Teachable.net (United Kingdom)• Agenzia Nazionale per lo Sviluppo dell’Autonomia Scolasti

ca (former INDIRE) (Italy)

• SMART Technologies (United Kingdom)

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A basic list of issues sets the agenda

•How do you establish a repository of learning resources together with producers and users

•Everyday organisation and management of a repository•Optimising number of titles and users •Quality frameworks and criteria•Networking repositories•Functionalities and features of a repository•Pedagogical metadata and links to curriculum•Management of IPR screening and clearance •Role of repositories in the new web environment

SoA - “Huge variety of repositories across Europe”

• Catalogues of descriptions (metadata, links)• Catalogues and Containers of content (metadata & data)• Networks of repositories

• Digital resources - All types of resources

• Free content – Commercial content

• For everybody – Membership based (login)

• Validated/screened (quality assurance, rights management)

• Some facilitate feedback

• Target: schools, further/higher ed., homes

SoA – obvious trends

• Public money in one way or the other– Central or regional initiatives – to encourage teachers’ uptake of innovative materials and learning styles

(traditional textbooks are still preferred by a majority of the teachers)– But also examples of successful commercial or user driven repositories

• Digital resources– web resource (a collection of web sites) somewhere in cyberspace

• Catalogues and containers of content (metadata & data)• For everybody (no membership requested)

• Target: schools (further/higher ed. separately)

Success indicators

– A successful repository is a platform thatmany use to find learning resources of high quality.

– Use should be regular and frequent– Quality not quantity – Expected Usage pattern

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Danish national repository use statistics

Materialeplatformen

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

Date

Un

igu

e vi

sito

rs w

eekl

y

2007-8

2008-9Marketing works

SoA - some success stories

• Education Highway in Austria.By far the biggest educational repository, offering

– 36 subject oriented portals – over 800 thematic collections– more than 80.000 titles

• Since February 1994 online• Repository started with a database in 1996• Subject oriented repositories since 1996/1997

First subject: Chemistry

• www.schule.at adapted to this concept in 2000

• Today still the most successful portals in Austria

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EduHi.at – Page views per month

0

1.000.000

2.000.000

3.000.000

4.000.000

5.000.000

6.000.000

7.000.000

8.000.000

9.000.000

10.000.000

2005 2006 2007 2008

Eduhi.at – Why are we successful?

•“As our editors are teachers they know what their colleagues need and try to provide this content and links on the subject oriented platforms. The teachers like that they can access relevant content and helpful links.”

•“Students like that they find relevant content for presentations and reports, because the work of filtering the content has already been done by teachers.”

SoA – more success stories

• KlasCement in Belgium, an initiative of a non-profit organization. Maintained by five teachers funded by the government, and everything is submitted by teachers

• Lektion.se in Sweden, a private initiative founded by teachers. It is the most popular service currently with more than 200.000 users, and is a rapidly expanding base of shared lesson plans

Often user based repositories appear to impact better than traditional top-down approaches

No quality control

Community based

Very successful commercial repository

SoA – New developments

• Content is linked to the curriculum– e.g. in France, Ireland, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Austria, Norway

and the UK (the now closed Curriculum Online service)

• Quality assurance and rights issues play a big role– Summary of findings from the EdReNe Quality Assurance sessions

• Initiatives combine central repositories with school learning platforms– e.g. England, Scotland, Spain, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Italy, Finland and Austrian

regions

• The National Digital Resource Bank in England will provide a national repository to house content created by schools and local authorities

• Users meet the repository or a collection of repositories at their local school web portal or in their own virtual learning environment

– e.g. The Netherlands (Edurep), Sweden (The Spider), Denmark (Materialeplatformen)

EDUREP value chain and communitiesModel for Succes - 3 tier solution. Specialisation is the key

New players on the pitch

• Cultural heritage (educational) repositories have emerged – e.g. Denmark, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, The Netherlands and the UK– Europeana – cultural collections of Europe

• Broadcasting companies have established popular servicesby which schools can subscribe to TV and radio productions

– e.g. in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Ireland and the UK.

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Europeana.eu

Europeana is a place for inspiration and ideas The current prototype links to 4.2 million digital objects from more than 1000 organisations

Version 1.0 (2010) will link to more than 10 million digital objects

Although Europeana has to be a unique source it is not all in one database. It is a distributed solution.

“Europeana should be the single, direct and multilingual access point to the European cultural heritage” - European Parliament September 27, 2007

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Repositories can also be small, still innovative

The “Knowledge Hub” (Kunskapshuppen) from Årtaskolan in Sweden

The teachers share their clips on YouTube, and add good stuff from YouTube to Kunskapshubben.

“Although we are good we cannot do everything” (quote ;-)They use Creative Commons licenses.

It is important to note that the clips complement teaching in class – it is not a replacement!

Link to the website: www.kunskapshubben.se

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The world’s best learning resource is no good if nobody uses it

Benchmarking Access and Use of ICT in European Schools, September 2006http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/benchmarking/index_en.htm