Online Education

Basic questions

• For whom do we create e-learning content

• What do they need to learn

• How do we organize the content

• Which tools / platform do we use? For creating? For delivering?

• How do we address different learning styles?

Creating media

• Text

• Pictures

• Sound

• Video

• Educational animation

• Interactive exercises

Binding it together

Most often HTML is used to bind together the different e-learning media. Sometimes XML based files are created which are then rendered to HTML/CSS/JavaScript by using an XSLT transformation. However often proprietary technologies are used like Macromedia Flash, an authoring tool, which leverages the JavaScript-like language called ActionScript to enable advanced functionality and interactivity. Data conferencing applications are sometimes used to share and manipulate e-learning media.

One standard for presenting e-learning content is SCORM whilst other specifications allow for the transporting of "learning objects" (Schools Interoperability Framework) or categorizing meta-data(UKLOM).