Learning Objects: Making Visual Representations of Complex Concepts Accessible to Students

November 7, 2005

In recent years, Learning Objects have become a popular and effective means of visually representing discrete elements of course content in a modular, reusable way. Learning Objects take many forms, but are most often thought of as simulations, animations, and applets that help to explain and make complex concepts and processes visual. In many instances, largely conceptual content has been made more accessible to students through these visual representations. Learning Objects can be shown in a lecture or linked to course sites in myWPI.

There are numerous peer-reviewed online repositories available, each of which categorizes its collection using different means (most often by discipline). Some of the more popular repositories include:

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System)
EOE (Educational Object Economy)

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Last modified: Nov 02, 2005, 14:44 EST