While serving as a vehicle for major changes in the way people communicate, the Internet has also had a significant impact on the way people learn. This shift is inevitably causing a transformation in the way educational material is designed, developed and delivered. In turn, this has encouraged the creation of components called ‘Learning Objects’ that can be re-used in different learning contexts and by multiple faculty members simultaneously.
 What is a Learning Object?
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The discussions around the exact definition of a Learning Object are endless and we have yet to find one approved by all organizations in the Instructional Design field. For the present, the ACPS has chosen a simple explanation to facilitate the understanding of these digital educational aids.
"A Learning Object is any digital resource that can be reused to support learning." - David Wiley (2000).
Digital resources can be images or photos, live data feeds, live or pre-recorded video or audio, animations, simulations, web-delivered applications like a Java calculator and so on.
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| Properties of a Learning Object
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The following are the key properties of Learning Objects (adapted from the Wisconsin Online Resource Center, Robert J. Beck):
- They are reusable: A single learning object may be used in multiple contexts for multiple purposes
- They can be aggregated: Learning objects can be grouped into larger collections of content, including traditional course structures
- They are tagged with metadata: Every learning object has descriptive information allowing it to be easily found during search
- They are self-contained: Each learning object can be taken independently
- They are small units of learning: "Typically" ranging from 2 minutes to 15 minutes
Any digital resource with the above properties may be considered a Learning Object.
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| Creating a Learning Object
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The ACPS Instructional Designers offer assistance in designing and creating Learning Objects. All what you need to do is to email acps@aub.edu.lb describing what you want to create, and we will reply back to you as soon as possible.
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