Abstract:

Education has evolved along with the new technologies that have emerged during the last few years. The emergence of numerous systems and educational resources has led to the establishment of standards that allow their efficient use. One of the great problems institutions face when using distance education resides in sharing and reusing resources to reduce the amount of effort in the e-learning content development.
In this context, Learning Objects represent digital resources to support learning, as they allow for the integration of different types of multimedia content and can be built in small modules, encouraging students to build knowledge in small portions.
Our task was to design, implement and apply learning objects in a Web Accessibility course, which provides important and useful content on a very current topic. The use of LOs for this course requires some preestablished norms and a fair amount of originality, because of its specific application and potential reuse in a growing field. For the design of the LOs, two methodologies were analyzed and applied: ISD-MeLO and Cisco PLC. Among other factors, pedagogical aspects were taken into account to define the goals pursued and identify the students’ profile. The application of both methodologies allowed for a parallel between them, analyzing their differences. . The LOs were implemented using ReloadEditor, under the SCORM standard norms, to take full advantage of the communication functions with the LMS. The LOM metadata standard and the LOMPad metadata editor were used to define our LO metadata. For their distribution, the LOs were incorporated into LMS Moodle, a platform that has been used for several years and that allows for the implementation of LO browsing and student information tracking.
First, the LOs were evaluated by the tutors, which resulted in a restructuring of the content to achieve a more detailed follow-up of each unit. Afterwards, the students evaluated them. This last evaluation, implemented through Moodle, includes very wide criteria with objective and subjective aspects and added quantifiable values. It was based on the proposal of Ruiz González, Muñoz Arteaga and Álvarez Rodríguez in Formato para la Determinación de la Calidad en los Objetos de Aprendizaje.

Keywords:

Learning Objects, SCORM.