e-Soils: Enriching Education with Learning Objects
For many of us, a few days of heavy summer rain means we tote along an umbrella when we venture outside. For a Minnesota farmer, heavy rains could result in waterlogged soil and a subsequent visit from an educator from University of Minnesota, who will provide information on how to resolve problems that result. For Jenni Swenson, an information technology specialist in the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate who works with faculty members in the department, heavy summer rains can result in a "teaching moment."
Such teaching moments inspired e-Soils, a project in development and currently in its fourth year. In the future e-Soils will be an "online library of learning objects organized into information nodes about basic principles of soil science." The purpose is to make learning objects—small, reusable chunks of instructional material—available to instructors, whether they respond to a farmer’s concern about flooded farmland or develop a lecture for a course on Basic Soil Science. From the perspective of future users, the process will involve the simple act of running a search and making a selection from the results. But, as is always the case in developing technology-enhanced teaching materials, the work involved behind the scenes is involved and complex.
Cultivating the e-Soils project required that Swenson find funding and many collaborators. Initial funding came from three consecutive TEL grants sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Vice Provost for Distributed Education and Instructional Technology Billie Wahlstrom encouraged Swenson to pursue an iSeek grant funded by Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. And of course such a project requires the creative input of content experts; thus far Swenson has worked with Ed Nater, John Lamb, George Rehm, Carl Rosen, and Paul Bloom, all professors in the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate. In future Swenson envisions creating a repository of information for and by instructors throughout the state of Minnesota. An instructor might become involved in the e-Soils project through a search for materials, but might later contribute content and engage in peer review.
According to Swenson, e-Soils reached a new level when she began investigating in greater depth the theoretical underpinnings of learning objects. To "count" as a learning object, the material must possess three characteristics. A learning object is first, self-contained, and second, reusable. For example, a brief animated demonstration on soil testing first might be used in an undergraduate course and later might be integrated into an extension presentation on gardening. Third, learning objects are tagged with metadata, or "data about the data." Attached to the learning object on soil testing would be information such as the intended audience, instructional method, and creators. Swenson credits Kurtis Scaletta, a Digital Media Center, OIT consultant, with encouraging her to develop metadata. According to Swenson, "Adding metadata makes the project much more difficult, but will make the product so much better." She adds that when creating archives of information, including metadata is crucial: "Now when you apply for a grant, they want you to address the issue of metadata."
Attaching metadata to a learning object is beneficial because it facilitates searches for materials, but many may be unaware of other benefits. For example, adding metadata protects the intellectual property of instructors. As Swenson explains, "The problem with the Web is that people pull things off, rework them, and put them back out there. With the metadata, we can keep track of who created a learning object and who downloaded it. And professors are worried about protecting their work, about it being stolen and reworked without begin given proper credit." By making the creators of the materials more visible through metadata, there may be new opportunities for future collaboration and for building e-Soils into a valuable resource for instructors both inside and outside of the University.
Related Resources
- Read our earlier profile of the e-Soils project, see screenshots from a prototype, and link to related resources on our e-Soils page.
