Learning Objects?? What's That?

Learning Objects?? Hmm. . . I have never heard of learning objects!  As I started thinking through my instructional practices I realized that I use learning objects all the time.  

There are lots of things to consider before designing a learning object.  

As a first grade teacher, I need to think through the fact that some of my students can not read.  If the learning object is for all of my students, I need all my students to benefit.  I also need to take into consideration the content I want them to learn and how they will best learn this content.  Sometimes a hands-on activity is the best instructional practice to help my students master a specific standard, so I need to make sure I am using the learning object to maximize learning experiences.  Learning objects also need to be designed to engage my students.

I have started creating learning objects to support my blended learning environment for my first graders.  One way I create learning objects is through the use of Nearpod.  My students are able to move through slides independently and then show me understanding by submitting their work.  I receive a report on a daily basis showing me the submitted work.

For example, my students continue to struggle with using capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation marks at the end.  The first slide of the learning object was a video I created of myself typing up a story.  I left out capital letters and periods as I typed the story. The next slide was a YouTube video of a fun song explaining that you need to use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and a punctuation mark at the end. The next slide was a video of me asking for their help to correct the story I had just written.  They were able to mark up my paper and make corrections.  Once they were finished they hit "send".  Their work was then sent to a report that I have access to at any point in time.  

I designed this learning object as an independent activity because I knew I wasn't going to have the time to provide this lesson in a whole group setting.  This way I was able to continue my small groups and still provide a needed lesson.  I added the YouTube video to make the learning more engaging and fun for my students.  To this day, they ask me if they can watch that video!! Haha!  I was able to look at the work submitted and pull small groups to provide writing support if needed.

Feel free to check out my learning object by downloading the Nearpod app and put the letters, QEFCR, in as the pin number.

Below you will find the video where I was typing my story.  This is only part of the whole learning object.

I think the article, "Preparing Teachers to Use Learning Objects," provides a great explanation of learning objects as well as strategies to motivate teachers to design learning objects.  This article also encourages training and supporting new and veteran teachers in technology as they begin creating learning objects.

As I was searching the internet to see what was out there on learning objects, I came across this Twitter stream.  This is where I found the article mentioned above.
#learningobjects Tweets