A Strategy for the Inductive Generation of Learning Objects in low-Tech Contexts

Abstract

This article proposes a strategy to create inductive and incremental LOs in tertiary education low-tech contexts such as the field of Humanities. We take a teaching context to be low-tech when the teachers are not computer specialists and also have poor IT support. This is the case with many university schools in Spain, such as the Faculty of Philology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), where the work reported here has been carried out. In a low-tech context, the use of Educational ICT is considerably expensive, if not impossible. However, university faculty feels more and more compelled to use ICT tools in their teaching, e.g. e-learning platforms. In the process of adaptation and integration of ICT into teaching, a basic issue is the transformation of good teaching materials into digital format in the simplest and most cost-effective way. Good results can be obtained by applying the Learning Object (LO) model when creating digital teaching materials, but the models and tools to build LOs are not easy to understand or use without prior knowledge, and their application requires computer support beyond what is usually available in low-tech contexts. The results of the research carried out during the last decade thanks to a number of research grants show that, by using the appropriate models, tools and strategies, it is possible to bring ICT to IT-illiterate teachers and get excellent results regarding the educational use of ICT by these teachers. In the present work a solution has been designed and tested to disseminate teaching materials through the generation of LO collections in low-tech contexts. This solution is based on applying a novel strategy to inductively construct LOs from the original materials. This is done by applying a model and a repository of LOs, developed and tested in previous works, and a new quality model for LOs collaboratively developed with the beneficiaries of this strategy, i.e. IT-illiterate Humanities teachers. The authors of this paper are part of a mixed team of IT-specialist and IT-illiterate Humanities teachers who developed and applied this strategy. Our paper aims to provide a real and complete picture of the problem and the solution developed.