Workshop Materials

Guideline and Resources for Repurposing Teaching Materials as Digital Learning Objects

KISS

Keep it short and strategic. The outcomes of learning objects should be single-minded so that they could be

• flexible when integrating with other objects and
• meaningful when students' interaction with the objects need to be assessed.

Sustainable

• Use software that you are familiar with to get started.
• Save your learning objects in file formats that allow convenient play back on different computing devices and platforms, i.e. html, pdf, mov, mp4, mp3, etc.
• Use materials that you can share the copyrights (i.e. Creative Commons) or create your own.
• Repurpose or share learning objects with other authors (i.e. MERLOT).
• Use cost effective online reading resources over a text book

Resources

• Learning materials in MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Find peer reviewed materials or submit your own.
•  iTunesU at SJSU or find the iTunesU at your university.
• Examples of lecture videos from leading universities
• Slideshare Presentations available on a variety of topics.
• WordImages This site has 75,000 images on a variety of subjects that are free for educational use.
• CreativeCommons - Copyright information to share, remix, reuse, legally.
• Copyright for fair use 

Inclusive

• Practice universal for learning (UDL). Consider using a variety of media or technologies to present your information or activities to motivate participation and expression from all students.
• Comply with accessibility. Provide alternatives or supplements to your learning objects so that they will support a variety of learning styles and specific learning abilities.

Examples of practice of accessibility:

• Provide text file (and/o audio file) versions for your learning objects such as speaker notes, script or captions for your narrated video clips.
• Create alternative texts for your images, including charts and diagrams, that are not decorative.
• Use heading styles to prioritize your information in the contents
• Convert files to a file format that would enable text-to-speech easily such as html, pdf, etc.
• 
  

Resources

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines from National Center of UDL
• More resources on UDL from the perspective of accessibility
• Accessible technologies resources for teaching and learning from CSU
• Tips on creating accessible documents [iTunes video]