Evaluating Online Learning Resources

It is important that teachers or evaluators that are in the process of creating learning resources for online learning must consider the learning resources in areas such as the content/format, instructional design, evaluation/assessment and social considerations.

Content/Format

The material is significant to the aims and objectives of the curriculum. It should be accurate, completed and up-dated. They should be easy to use and durable so that they are suitable for the classroom.

Instructional Design

The content should be in the form of activities not lecture-based. It should be prepared in a way that students should work both in groups and individually. The Material should promote the idea to students to ask questions, think, react and decide. Choice and flexibility are to be given to meet the students’ requirements for different abilities, learning styles and interests. The content should be in guided form. Support from teacher should be also available.

Evaluation/Assessment

The learning resources should be supportive for the individual to continue the learning. It should provide both formative and summative evaluation. The assessment should be given both after each module of the course and at the end of the whole course. The assessment is to provide information that the students can relate to.

Social Consideration

The content should be sensitive to any gender, sexual orientation, culture and heritage. It is important to promote equality and support students’ self-esteem. Students with special needs should be able to integrate themselves with the material as being part of the class. Good role models should be used when they are included in the learning material.

Apart from these, the learning material could take into consideration the audience that it is going to target. Meaning that, the resources used are to be adequate for the classroom situation. Also, the age and the native language should be included in the list of things that are needed to be evaluated before producing the learning resources.

Audience Considerations

To help students, the text organization should be aided with tables of contents, glossaries, chapter titles, identify sub-topics and summaries. As the learning material can be accessed by students from different countries the resource language should have a vocabulary that can be understood by many if not all, clear sentence structure and development that clearly identify the main idea. Using useful graphics to enhance the main ideas are important and they should be placed near the text that it corresponds to.

Media Considerations

Any videos used should engage the students’ attention. There must be a balance between education and entertainment. The length of presentation should not be too long as it will lose the students’ interest. The resource should give the opportunity to think about it. Also, the resource should be about a significant situation. A digital resources provide the students with interactivity while they are learning and also give feedback. It should be customizable to the needs of the students. This type of resources must be accessible by the majority of the target students.

Various. (Revised 2002). General Learning Resources Consideration. In Evaluating, Selecting and Managing Learning Resources: A Guide (pp. 13-24). British Columbia - Ministry of Education.