A learning design toolkit to create pedagogically effective learning activities

Commentary on: Chapter 9: An Instructional Engineering Method and Tool for the Design of Units of Learning. (Paquette, De la Teja, Léonard, Lundgren-Cayrol & Marino, 2005) Abstract: Despite the plethora of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools and resources available, practitioners are still not making effective use of e-learning to enrich the student experience. This article describes a learning design toolkit which guides practitioners through the process of creating pedagogically informed learning activities which make effective use of appropriate tools and resources. This work is part of a digital libraries project in which teaching staff at two universities in the UK and two in the USA are collaborating to share e-learning resources in the subject domains of Physical, Environmental and Human Geography. Finding, or creating, suitable e-learning resources and embedding them in well designed learning activities can be both challenging and time consuming. Sharing and adapting effective designs and solutions is both a stimulant and a time saver. This article describes the background to the specification of a learning activities design toolkit to support teachers as they create or adapt e-learning activities. This uses a model of pedagogical approaches as a basis for developing effective learning design plans and illustrates its use. The authors share their definition of a learning activity and taxonomies for the constituent elements. Real examples are discussed to illustrate their approach. Editors: Colin Tattersall and Rob Koper. Interactive demonstrations: An online version of the toolkit is available at http://www.nettle.soton.ac.uk/toolkit/Default.aspx.