THE
LEARNING
WELL
#digitalrepository
THE BAHAMAS MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING
In recent years, the Department of Education has embarked upon several initiatives to make the delivery of instruction to students in Bahamian schools easier and less time consuming.
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One such initiative is the development of the first ever educational digital repository. Recent global and national experiences have catapulted the Department of Education into 21st Century Learning. The provision of digitally accessed resources is no longer an option but a necessity. The development of the aptly named, Learning Well, will provide educators, students and eventually the general public unlimited access to Bahamian resources that are developed to enhance instruction and learning. The repository will also serve as a resource for research purposes.
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An educational digital repository is defined as a storage system, used to archive and manage learning content. The Learning Well contains what are called Reusable Learning Objects (RLO). An RLO is, in most instances, a digital educational resource (documents, video, audio, images) that can be reused, scaled and shared from a central online repository in the support of instruction and learning. RLOs also contain metadata (a collection of information like the author, file size, the date the document was created, and keywords to describe the document) authoring and editing features.
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The Learning Well provides a central storage system of resources complementing the Department of Education’s curricula. Users are able to access and retrieve these resources. The Learning Well also allows users to upload self-created shareable content. The majority of the content currently uploaded to the repository are considered open resources that would also be editable to suit needs and purposes of the retriever.
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The Learning Well is an ever evolving system whose initial launch includes items freely submitted by educators. Future submissions will include content developed, evaluated and approved by the Department of Education.
So ‘grab your bucket’ and become a part of this innovative effort that is designed to change the way we approach the creation and use of resources in the educational realm.
