Educational Technology Innovation and Impact/Multimedia Courseware/Educational Learning Object Repositories

The dramatic growth in e-learning has brought about a massive increase in the learning resources that are available on-line. The catalogue of hardware and software packages available to the modern day educator and learner is constantly evolving as each new technology is developed. Learning materials are written by a wide range of practitioners from professional software developers to pupils experimenting with programming, from teachers to parents.

A wide range of these materials are available in the public domain and can be found in a variety of LORs (Learning Object repositories). The learning object can be as small as a paragraph of text or a large as whole programme. It can come in the form of HTML, text files, JAVA, flash or QuickTime movies etc. The LOR has come about as a direct result of the need for these resources to be easily found and reusable.

Much of the resources found in LORs have been substantially researched and reviewed, this can save the new user much valuable time in identifying good quality and effective resource. Some offer a variety of fee based services to support the end user and give added information and instruction on the usage of the resource.

There are a number of LORs that can be directly associated with education and are supported by educational institutions. One such site is MERLOT a free and open resource designed for faculty and students primarily studying Higher education. The links contain online learning material, peer reviews and assignments.

With so many resources available the development of an LOR that looks to standardise the materials and make them available through a standardised learning environment.