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Temple University Center for Research
in Human Development and Education |
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There is currently significant national and international
activity around eLearning and the standardization of its
objects to help the Internet realize its potential for
education and training. For instance, the Advanced
Distributed Learning (ADL
www.adlnet.org) initiative works with key industry
leaders to identify critical technical interface points
around which standards for web-based learning technologies
might be developed. This involves meeting with standards
organizations such as the Learning Technology Standards
Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), the Aviation Industry Computer Based
Training (CBT) Committee, as well as other recognized
leaders in the field. ADL partnerships between the federal
government, private-sector technology suppliers, and the
broader education and training community have started to
provide a solid framework to make learning software
accessible, interoperable, durable, reusable, adaptable, and
affordable. However, there is still the need to transfer
such developments in corporate and organizational training
to preK-12 education.
A framework that assesses the quality and guides effective
design is important to eLearning. If eLearning is to
influence student achievement and classroom practice, the
digital content and applications of all subject areas and
grades must be determined to be high quality and well
documented. Needless to say, it is also imperative that this
"eContent" be easy to find and use and be accessible to all.
In addition, portals are
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required to carefully catalogue Internet resources from many
different organizations distributed over the Web. Projects
such as GEM have made some progress around this challenge
using an interoperable metadata schema based on the
international standard of the Dublin Core (www.dublincore.org).
Quality is part of GEM's cataloguing scheme, as defined by
the following six attributes: accuracy, appropriateness,
clarity, completeness, motivation, and organization.
Unfortunately the assessment of such values can be extremely
subjective and context-dependent.
The network of Regional Technology in Education Consortia
(R*TEC) is working under the leadership of WestEd RTEC (www.westedrtec.org)
on the development of a national portal that will
effectively integrate resources around the different
dimensions of technology integration (general educational
technology, access, learning and teaching, leadership and
administration, and innovation) produced by diverse
providers and targeted to specific audience groups and
needs. The mid-Atlantic R*TEC (MAR*TEC) is considering the
very specialized area of using technology tools to assess
student work and develop a better understanding of the role
of technology in teaching and learning. This project aims at
providing the educational community an online portal with
rich opportunities to reflect and affect technology
integration practice in a collaborative way. More regional
and national projects continue to develop and use online
portals as a step in the creation and evolution of high
performing learning communities. (See the reference list for
some examples of educational portals in the mid-Atlantic
region.)
References
National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for
the 21st Century. (2000). Before it's too late. Retrieved
January 24, 2002, from
http://www.ed.gov/americacounts/glenn/ toolate-execsum.html
New Jersey Department of Education (2001). New Jersey
professional educational port. Retrieved January 24, 2002,
from
http://njpep.rutgers.edu/
Pennsylvania Depatment of Education (2001). Link to learn.
Creating the Pennsylvania education network. Retrieved
January 24, 2002, from
http://l2l.org/
United States Department of Education. (2001). eLearning:
Putting a world-class education at the fingertips of all
children. Retrieved January 24, 2002, from
http://www.ed.gov/ Technology/elearning/
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