Abstract:

The COVID-19 crisis leads to many changes. Education is one of the areas where drastic change in an extremely short period of time was necessary. The transition to online learning has made digital learning resources integral part of the learning process. The direct interaction time between teacher and students in a virtual environment is shorter than in the traditional classroom. Students' self-preparation requires more time and calls for the need of developing appropriate learning resources. Therefore, the integration of interactivity into learning resources is an important element for improvement of the quality of learning.

The paper presents a model for design and development of digital interactive learning resources (D3ILR) by teachers. The model is based on the Educational Software Design and Development (ESDD) model designed from the authors. The idea of the new model is to adapt the ESDD model for development of interactive learning resources. The model is intended to be used by teachers, to give them a simple and easy way to add interactive elements when developing learning resources. The model keeps two main phases form the ESDD model – Analysis, and Design & Development. The main emphasis in the D3ILR model is on the pedagogical design of interactive elements, on the selection of tools for interactivity development, and on the development process of the interactive digital resources.

The first phase of the D3ILR model includes three stages. The first stage Needs analysis, is aimed to identify the learning problem. The second stage Audience analysis, identifies users’ group and its learning needs. The third stage is Task analysis, where the learning goals and objectives are specified, and the learning content is identified. Here also the different learning activities and tasks are specified.

The second phase also includes three stages. The first stage is Design, where the purpose of educational materials is defined – for new knowledge, for exercise, or for assessment. The major levels of Intellectual skills by Robert Gagne’s taxonomy of learning goals are also defined. Then, based on the learning content, the purpose, and the types of intellectual skills, the appropriate places and types of interactions are defined. The last step of this stage is to select appropriate media and tools for development. The next stage of the second phase is the Development where the designed learning resource is developed by using the selected media and tools. Last stage in the Design phase is Testing & Evaluation. It includes testing and evaluation by experts and end users. Finally, after evaluation and revision of summarised results of testing, the developed resource could be used in learning.

In any of the stages the D3ILR model provides an opportunity to go back and make changes in previous stages of analysis and design. This opportunity is very important when teachers choose media and tools for development of already designed materials and interactions. Sometimes teachers have limited skills in use of appropriate technologies to realise designed interaction. In these cases they can go back and change the design to make it easier to develop the resource through selected, known by them, tools.

The D3ILR model gives the teachers a simplified and easy to follow development procedure; puts special emphasis on the integration of interactivity in learning resources; is easily adapted for different kinds of learning resources and user groups.

Keywords:

Interactive digital learning resources, design by teachers, learning resources design and development model.