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[edit] Can European teachers find curriculum related digital learning resources?

The LIFE survey on curriculum related search possibilities in national and regional school portals in Europe

http://life.eun.org

European Schoolnet, September 2006

Contact: Riina Vuorikari, at eun.org

[edit] Introduction

This survey and report focuses on how European K-12 teachers (i.e. compulsory education) can search for digital learning resources that match to the topics, goals and learning activities outlined in the national or regional curriculum. The survey has looked into the offerings of about thirty national or regional portals, out of which 23 have been included in this report. Most of these portals and repositories are participating in the European Schoolnet network (www.eun.org). The survey sought to identified the following:

  • whether the users have possibility to search for digital learning material that has explicit match to the curriculum needs, or
  • whether there exist any classification system that hints this type of relations between the learning resource and curricula.

The survey was conducted between February and June 2006, a revision and validation of initial results was done in August by a number of European Schoolnet members. Not all the cases have been validated (find a "not validated" mark under the header). 

 In September 2006 the report was placed in a wiki to allow collaborative correction and further writing of the report. 
 The aim is to gather cases from each European country. 
 You are welcome to make your additions in this wiki or send your information to the contact person in EUN. 
 People from educational authorities whose country still has "not validated" mark are invited to review the information 
 and make needed changes.


After the introduction, one can find the executive summary that highlights the outcomes of this desk survey. Following the background and methodology are explained. The two (2) main parts of the report follow; first we present the repositories and portals where teachers can find resources related to national or local curriculum ( Part 1.) and then, in the Part 2., we list the repositories and portals where teachers are helped to find resources with some indication of intended target audience and subject area through the use of own vocabularies.


The report is part of the outcomes of the European Commission supported eLearning project called "Learning Interoperability Framework for Europe" (LIFE).

[edit] Exclusive Summary

This survey identifies a number (29) of European Schoolnet partners' Learning Object Repositories and Educational portals, and conducts a survey to answer the question: Can European teachers find curriculum related digital learning resources on their national, regional or local school portals?

In the other words, this desk research has focused on finding out whether there is any indication of the digital learning resources compliance or coverage of the national or regional curriculum, its topics, goals and learning activities that teachers are required to teach. More specifically, this desk research looked to find traces of explicit curriculum related classifications, or any manifests of some rather implicit indication that could help teachers to use the learning material to teach according to required goals set by the national, regional, or local curriculum. The Learning Object Repositories (LOR) and Portals that were surveyed help teachers access digital learning resources at school level.

From the survey results it becomes clear that in a number of European learning object repositories (LOR) and Portals, that aim at primary and secondary school level, teachers can search digital educational material:


Image:List of LORs 20060928.png

Table 1. The surveyed repositories (as of Sept 06) listed by country, name, ULR and curriculum related information.

From this desktop survey it appears that among European K-12 LORs and Portal there are explicit and implicit methods used to express learning resources suitability to certain curriculum topics, goals or learning activities.

By explicit we mean that the suitability and/or match of a given resource to curriculum is indicated in the metadata description of resources. This information can be used to help choosing resources or as a search term for retrieving resources. This is displayed in the “Curriculum metadata: explicit” column of the Table 1.

By implicit expression of the relation to the curriculum topics, goals and learning activities we propose two slightly different meanings. First, either a certain national taxonomy or vocabulary is created that identifies national needs and requirements that, either do or do not, carry bearing to the national curricula. Second, implicit match to curriculum can also be indicated in terms of the metadata description where the intended audience, topic areas and, in some cases also activities are described, usually in terms of controlled metadata vocabularies. The implicit information is displayed in the “Indication of other relations” column of the Table 1.

Especially in the latter case, the relation of the material to a curriculum is not explicitly described, however, we can assume that most of the local indexers/librarians and teachers know the relation. On the one hand, they have the understanding of the local educational system, the curriculum and more or less the knowledge of the prerequisites skills needed for certain educational level. On the other hand, teachers have accumulated tacit knowledge that is needed to make these relations as part of their professional learning experiences.

It is important to note, however, that in the case of implicit expression of the curriculum relation, this knowledge is not directly displayed in the metadata description in terms of curriculum suitability, but it remains as part of a tacit knowledge of both the indexers and the end-users of the resources. This tacit knowledge is most likely transferable to other end-users in the local and national context, but does not translate well on the European level, as such knowledge is not explicitly expressed in the metadata. Especially in the case of the implicit curriculum information the problem appears when the learning resources “travel” across the border, i.e. they are made available for searches in the federation of the repositories where, for example, a Norwegian learning resources can be retrieved by an Austrian teacher. In this case, if the explicit curriculum relation is not expressed, it is hard to estimate the resources real value for re-use. Thus, a fair amount of tacit knowledge that is not explicitely expressed lies within the metadata descriptions of digital learning resources.

[edit] Background

In the recent European Schoolnet publication "Reflections on eTwinning" (October 2006), the eTwinning Pedagogical Advisory Group categorises teaching and learning situations in three dimensions of Content, Responsibility and Pedagogical relationship (table 1). Moreover, the table splits these three dimensions into four subareas that area identified in the table with a, b, c and d. The table can be used to help plan and analyse the activities that teachers undertake in cross-country ICT-supported pedagogical projects.

Image:ETwinning PAG2.png

Table 1.

European learning portals and repositories offer teachers a diversity of content that can be identified somewhere on the dimension of "strong theory directed, curriculum based" to "Strong practice orientated, problem based". What is not clear, though, is how teachers can find material on that same dimension, as this type of information, for example about the curriculum coverage, is not usually encoded into the metadata that is used for indexing and searching purposes.

[edit] Methodology

This desk research took place between February and June 2006. An analyst identified a number of educational learning object repositories in Europe that function within the partners of European Schoolnet’s network. Some external examples have been identified also. The sample includes twenty-nine (29) educational portals and repositories.

Each educational portal or repository has been carefully investigated for the purpose of finding out the answer to the main question; whether European teachers can find digital learning material that indicates its compliance to national and/or local curriculum topics, goals and learning activities.

In September 2006 the report is put on a wiki to be further collaboratively written by interested people. The intent is to fully cover all the European countries in better details. The challenge lies both on linguistic expertises and the knowledge of national educational offering.

[edit] Case by case: Can European teachers find digital learning resources related to their national curriculum?

This section of the report presents each reporitory, its url and main ways for users to access resources. In the Part 1 repositories and educational portals that offer indication to curriculum coverage are presented. In the Part 2 repositories and portals with implicit relation to national or regional curriculum are presented.

[edit] Part 1. Teachers can find resources related to national or local curriculum 

 This section presents the LORs and portals that offer search functionalities to find material with indication of its curriculum coverage.     
 It illustrates a number of the different usage of curriculum related information on this survey. 
 It is good to note that not one common way to express this information exist.

[edit] Austria: Bildungspool bildung.at, http://bildung.at

On the Austrian Educational portal, called Bildungspool, teachers can search for suitable learning material through subject area and intended school level. The screen capture below (image 1.) illustrates the main search interface.


Image:Bildungspool new copy.png

Image 1. Bildung.at, the main search interface


Austrian educational portal uses the IEEE Learning Object Metadata to describe their learning resources. In their Application Profile the used elements are defined, among all the use of LOM-element “curriculum coverage”. The screen capture below (image 2) illustrates how the curriculum relation is expressed. In this case the person uploading a piece of learning material on the portal can define to what school level according to Austrian system it is intended for (Bildungsebene, Ausbildungsstufe, Schulform) and what percentage does it cover of the curriculum.


Image:At_buildungspool_upload_copy.png

Image 2. The upload form for LOM curriculum coverage element


In the following screen capture (image 3) the whole metadata is displayed that the person who is searching for educational material can access. Again, in the field “Lehrplaneinordnung”, it is indicated to what level the resource is suitable for in the national Lehrplan, i.e. curriculum. However, it is important to notice that in this example only the intended school level is indicated, no relation to curriculum topics, goals or learning activities that are required are expressed.


Image:BildungsPool_curriculum_LOM_copy.png

Image 3. The metadata and curriculum compliance

[edit] France: Répertoire de scénarios pédagogiques http://primtice.education.fr/search/index.php 

"not validated"

In this educational service, that is provided by the French Ministry of Education, primary school teachers can search for educational scenarios that can help pupils to gain skills in the area of information and communication technologies (ICT). The service is called List of Pedagogical services. With the description of these scenarios, the suitability to certain educational level is indicated, as seen in the screen capture (image 4) below (look for œCycle 1), moreover, some of the activities that this scenario complies with are listed. Furthermore, the relation to goals and learning activities stated in Brevet Informatique et Internet (B2i) are indicated (look for œDomaines de competences. The B2i is a certificate that ensures the sufficient skills needed for the use of information technologies and Internet in France. In the metadata description some of the B2i targets and activities are listed. Additionally, this service has deployed some information visualisation technics to allow teachers to access the educational material. In the screen capture below (image 5), the different activities can be seen that can help young pupils to attain the B2i goals.


Image:Fr_primTICE-scenarios_curric_copy.png

Image 4. the detailed metadata


Image:Frenchinfovisnew.png

Image 5. Information visualisation of first basics to master information technology

[edit] Iceland: Menntagatt.is, http://menntagatt.is/default.aspx?pageid=176 

  "not validated"

From the website of the Ministry of Education (MoE) it becomes clear that the portal offers online resources for teachers through a service called “The Educational Gateway”, and that the access is facilitated by curriculum related metadata. The Icelandic curriculum exist in digital format and teachers can search if any educational objects have been linked to a particular section of any curriculum. Below the image 6. presents a screen capture of the MoE website, and the following the search interface (image 7.).


Image:Icelandnew.png

Image 6. Information related to the national curriculum in Iceland.


Image:Iceland_2new.png

Image 7. The Icelandic search interface

[edit] Ireland: Scoilnet http://www.scoilnet.ie 

  "not validated"

Scoilnet, the portal for Irish Education, offers teachers, students and pupils, as well as parents web-based learning resources. The access to resources for Primary education is organised by subject area and intended school level (image 8.), but for Secondary education the browsing for material is both by cycle and by curriculum (image 9.). For example in the case for the search interface in the image 10., the students can search material that is related to certain year, subject and topic within, although no further curriculum compliance is indicated.


Image:Scolinetprimarynew.png

Image 8. Access to Primary school resources


Image:Scolinetjuniorcyclenew.png

Image 9. Access to Junior Cycle resources.


Image:Scolinetjuniornew.png

Image 10. Details of the search.

[edit] Ireland: Skoool http://www.skoool.ie 

  "not validated"

In Ireland, the Skoool-portal offers access to digital learning resources linked to the national curricula and syllabus both to students and teachers. Skoool.ie is a collaboration between AIB Bank, The Irish Times, and Intel Ireland in association with other leading corporate supporters to promote innovative and interactive learning. On the website they state: “Focusing on the Irish Junior and Senior Cycle curricula, skoool.ie is the first resource of its kind designed specifically for Irish students and teachers.”

From the screen captures below one can see that in the “year planner” (image 11.) section students can find what is expected from them according to the curricula during the year in each subject area. Students can even print out a check-list with all the curriculum targets to check for themselves whether the topic is already covered in lesson and if they have revised it.


Image:Skooliieplannernew.png

Image 11. Year planner by subject area.


Image:Skooliieplannernew.png

Image 12. Study notes.


In another area, for example, in “senior cycle” students can find learning resources related to the each area of the curriculum that they have to study during the year (image 12.). The portal mostly makes resources available by browsing mode, a simple text search is available, but no advanced search function.

[edit] England, Curriculum Online: http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/

Curriculum Online is the main gateway to digital and web-based educational resources in England. The portal is a catalogue of resources from approved suppliers that are either free or can be purchased using electronic learning credits, eLCs. Schools have already been given £330 million of eLCs and the DfES recently announced a further £125million for next year. Using Curriculum Online, the teachers can find learning material that has an indication of its curriculum coverage. For example in the screen capture below (image 13.), a teacher can browse the collection starting from Mathematics and by choosing a key stage, i.e. an educational level that indicates goals and activities required as part of the national curriculum. By selecting the topic, in this case “Number and algebra” and 1) Using and applying numbers, the teacher can find suitable resources to a given curriculum topic and activity (image 14.). Additionally, in the metadata description of the resources (image 15.), there are “National curriculum keywords” in addition to common more general keywords.

The curriculum in England can be accessed using subjects categories at a detailed level or can be browsed using Programmes of Study or Schemes of Work structures that teachers are familiar with as they come from the statutory curriculum documents that make up the National Curriculum. The resources are also classified according to school years or key stages. Resources for Special Needs and cross curricula use are also identified.

The approach in the other three nations of the UK is slightly different but all offer support for finding resources for schools. There are several portals that can be found for example using links from the following web sites


Image:Curriculum_Online_Mathematics_curriculum_copy.png

Image 13. Browsing resources by curriculum compliance


Image:Curriculum_Online_Browse_Mathematics_results_copy.png

Image 14. Narrowing the search by selecting a activity related to curriculum goals.


Image:Curriculum_Online_Mathematics_curriculum_keywords_copy.png

Image 15. Metadata details related to the curriculum compliance.


The DfES have two approved independent evaluators, these area Schoolzone http://www.schoolzone.co.uk/ and http://www.learnevaluations.co.uk/


[edit] UK: Teem, http://www.teem.org.uk

On the Teem web-portal, Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia, teachers have access to digital learning material that has undergone an evaluation by other teachers. This evaluation, among some other key areas, include information about resources’ curriculum compliance. As shown in the image 16., the qualitative evaluation includes a part called “curriculum relevance” where the evaluator explains curriculum relevance and its extent. "The curriculum focus section aims to discuss educational digital learning resources available for specific subject and age ranges. They are intended to provide an introduction to the products available for a particular subject and Key Stage range."


Image:Teemcurriculum.png

Image 16. Curriculum relevance part from TEEM evaluation.


[edit] Denmark: Materialeplatformen, http://materialeplatform.emu.dk/

The Learning Resources Repository, Materialeplatformen, is a national, collective web catalogue of Danish learning resources where users can easily find exactly the learning resources they require.

Image:LIFE_curriculum_DK-1_html_m297a1d11.jpg

The Learning Resources Repository provides educators, students, pupils and producers with an updated survey of Danish learning resources, if, for instance, they are looking for a textbook, are looking for inspiration from colleagues, or wish to design a learning sequence using several types of material.

The Learning Resources Repository contains descriptions of all types of Danish learning resources from publishers’ textbooks to web pages and digital raw material for education in the form of video clips and pictures, for example. The learning resources can either be material to be paid for or free material.

Viewing or placing of orders for materials is done via a link to the producer’s own systems. It is also possible for developers to upload material to an attached file hotel.

The Repository comprises three main areas

  • Learning materials
  • Inspiration
  • Media archive

For compulsory education (grundskolen) the metadata include explicit reference to specified learning goals of the ‘common goals’ of the national curriculum (http://www.faellesmaal.uvm.dk) (image xx). Producers are presented with the metadata options via a webservice from the ‘common goals’ website. Similar references to established national curricula for other areas of education are either established or planned.

The users who search for learning materials may do this by free (advanced) text search or by a systematic search, e.g. along tree-structured routes of common (learning) goals.

It is easy for the users to distinguish between learning materials from a publishing companies, inspiration material from a colleague, and a media clip, which may enter into many contexts.

UNI•C develops and operates the Learning Resources Repository, which is a portal under the EMU, the Danish Education Portal. The repository is an initiative of the Government’s programme “IT i folkeskolen (ICT in primary and lower secondary education)”, now extended to cover all education areas up to further education.

Image:LIFE_curriculum_DK-1_html_1f09f2c.png

Image XX. Example of metadata from a registered title in Materialeplatformen. The reference to specific learning goals of the national curriculum is boxed.

[edit] Finland: Edu.fi, http://www.edu.fi

The Finnish Edu.fi provides digital learning resources that indicate the curriculum coverage in different sections of the portal, but this material is only made available by browsing the portal, there is no single entry to these materials. In some sections the topics covered in curriculum or a certain study area are well indicated, whereas some areas are less detailed.


Image:ETÄLUKIO - ENGLANTI - JOHDANTOKURSSI (20060922).png

Imagexx. Web-based introductory course to English at the higher secondary level

[edit] Hungary: Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base (SDT), http://sdt.sulinet.hu

The Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base (SDT) is a digital curriculum database and a content management tool with a very unique pedagogical metadata structure. The developed learning materials cover the curriculum in accordance with the requirements of the National Core Curriculum.

The SDT provides new opportunities for schools to obtain and use multimedia content in educational context. It enables users to work with previously not existing digital learning materials and provides teachers with supporting tools to prepare themselves for a problem-based approach in teaching and learning.

The main goal is to create a system in which content completely covers the curriculum of different grades according to knowledge areas. At present the developed content covers the curriculum of grades 7-12 (13 to 18 years) or 9-12 (15 to 18 years). A number of subjects in the curriculum of grades 1-6 (6 to 12 years) are currently under work. Syllabus, lesson-plans, and methodological guidelines are also available.

Image:Sulinet_2new.png

Image xx. Search interface with local taxonomy

The smallest learning assets (eg. picture, text, animation) can be independently used and new learning objects can be formed from them. With the curriculum editor application users can develop their own curriculum related material. From September 2006 on, individual users can upload learning resources using their private users’ interface.

To use the system all that is needed is an Internet connection and a browser. For the content development a supplementary application can be used, which can be downloaded free of charge and can be operated on-line and off-line on the users’ computers.

The knowledge base is part of the content development program of the Sulinet Program Office. It is available for everyone at http://sdt.sulinet.hu. Its use for not for profit public educational goals is free of charge.

[edit] Some examples from Oversees

Additionally to above European portals, we cover two (2) Northern American portal that offer digital learning resources for teachers and learners detailing the curriculum compliance. These two examples are the DLESE http://www.dlese.org, focusing on Earth Science and IDEAS, http://ideas.wisconsin.edu a repository held by Wisconsin educators.

In a case study findings (Recker, al. 2003) on the usage of National Science Digital Library (NSDL) one of the findings underscore the growing importance of linking collection items to specific K-12 educational standards in the United States. It suggests that metadata standards define elements and controlled vocabularies that enable these linkages to be described in ways that are meaningful to teachers.

Some examples are selected here from the United States where this type of information is part of metadata description of resources. Such example is the IDEAS repository from Wisconsin that offers quality catalogued, evaluated material that is aligned with academic standards by using the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards. This model has given a coding for each point of the curriculum, and has used them in the metadata description of the resources. This way, users can search for material that complies to a given standard. An example of an search interface is in the image 17., where users can access resources by choosing either first the age range, subject area, and the specific standard that they want to use. Also image 20. shows similar interface for DLESE.

In the following screen capture (image 18.), a pop-up explanation of the given standard is made available. The search is also possible through a list of all standards “standards and matching resources, in the image 19. below, the teacher has chosen the 8th grade environmental eductions, where the standard E. with personal and civic responsibility is explained and the number of resources matching with this is displayed. Image 21 shows a detailed results interface from DLESE that details the educational standards compliance.


Image:Ideascopy.png

Image 17. Search possibilities, also through academic standards, i.e. curriculum


Image:Curriculumwisconsin.png

Image 18. A pop-up window explaining the content of the standard.


Image:Ide@s_search_standard_copy.png

Image 19. Search results when searching resources by a specific curriculum target.


Image:Nsdl.png

Image 20. Search interface for standard’s compliance learning material


Image:DLESE description standards copy.png

Image 21. Metadata description of a resource detailing the compliance to educational standards.


[edit] Part 2. Teachers are helped to find resources with some indication of intended target audience and subject area through the use of own vocabularies.

[edit] Belgium, The Flemish Community, Klascement.net http://www.klascement.net/

In KlasCement web-portal teachers and learners can search for educational digital learning resources. It has become the official educational portal in Flanders. Philosophy is 'by teachers for teachers'. It is the main distribution channel for free content and for exchange of content made by teachers. The search can be done by subject area, intended audience and category (image 22.) or by text-based search-terms. The vocabularies are locally developed. In the screen captures below one can find an example of search results (image 23.).


Image:KlascementSearchnew.png

Image 22. Browsing resources by curriculum compliance.


Image:KlasCement_metadata_new.png

Image 23. Detailed search results.


There is also a Flemish-Dutch project "Programmamatrix" for primary education. It is an important and well known source of infomation for teachers about mostly commercial educational software. The "programmatrix" is an online database with descriptions of Dutch-language educational software packages written by educators, teachers, and educational experts with the emphasis on content quality and user-friendliness. Thus, interested teachers can find their way in the obscure and often unknown volume of commercial educational software.

See http://www.programmamatrix.be.

[edit] Belgium, The French Community: Respel: Ressources pedagogiques en ligne, http://www.respel.be

The Belgium French Community also offers online resources for teachers and learners. On their search interface, the search can be done by text-based search-terms or by browsing the keywords (image 24). The classification terms are locally developed, the Classification CFWB (Communaute Francaise Wallonie-Bruxelles). The other screen capture represents the search results (image 25).


Image:Respel_be_fr_search_copy.png

Image 24.Search interface with local taxonomy


Image:RespelResults.png

Image 25. Results interface



[edit] Belgium, The French Community: Répertoire de liens utiles, http://www.enseignement.be/prof/info/liensutiles/

The French Community of Belgium also offers an important repertory (regularly updated ) of more than 2000 websites classified by the subject area (Image xx).

Image:Liens_utiles_html_61698924.png

Image xx. Entry page to "Useful links"

Note: image of the site are machine-translated

A refined research is possible according to the level of study, the type of site (+/- interactive), as well as the sub-headings, categories of the discipline in question (image xx). One will also find there sites classified by sets of themes (Institutions, information resources, reference books, themes, interdisciplinary.)

Image:Liens_utiles_html_2bee5735.png

Image xx. example of advanced search

[edit] Italy: Gold by Indire, http://gold.indire.it/nazionale

Italian INDIRE allows teachers to access their pedagogical experiences that are linked to educational resources and LOs by using descriptors from a Thesaurus (image 27.). The thesaurus was conceived in the European Treasury Browser project, and developed in various European languages. More information about the thesaurus is available here http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/interoperability/learning_resource_exchange/metadata.htm


Image:Italy.png

Image 27. Search interface with local taxonomy

[edit] Estonia: Koolielu, http://www.koolielu.ee/

In the Estonian educational portal, Koolielu, a number of web-based resources are made available for teachers and learners. They can be acaccessed by browsing and searching. The editors in Koolielu have created they own categories, that do not necessary have any based on curriculum. However, teachers are very comfortable with these categories and terms, for example in computer science department, the vocabularies are a result of editors discussion with practitioners and teachers. In the image 28. below, one can see the search interface that allows the search by subject, its sub-topic, theme, intended audience and format of the resource.

Translation for the search terms:

  • Õppeaine - subject name based on existing curriculum.
  • Valdkond – subjects sub-topics based on curriculum or koolielu.ee developers taxonomy.
  • Teema – topic. It depends on selection in “Valdkond” field. If “valdkond” is based on curriculum, then the content of “Teema” is based on curriculum.
  • Kooliaste – age of end-user (based on college year or school levels)
  • Materjali tüüp – type of LO (test, examination, presentation, worksheet)

Image:Koolielunew.png

Image 28. Estonian local taxonomy on a search interface



[edit] Denmark: Fagenes Infoguide, http://infoguide.emu.dk/

On the Danish Fagenes Infoguide – a national repository with evaluated links to 10.000 web-resources (from any country) - the users can access educational material through different school levels, additionally also a free text search is available. In the metadata description of the resource the resources’ suitability according to the Danish taxonomy is displayed image 29 and 30. This taxonomy is developed to be used in Fagenes Infoguide, and it expresses some relation (level and subject) to the national curriculum relation. Apart from this information, some other keywords are given.


Image:Fagenes_Infoguide_curriculum_copy.png

Image 29. Danish detailed results


Image:Fagenes_infoguide_dk_metadatacopy.png

Image 30. Danish detailed results description.

[edit] Finland: Linkkipaja, http://www.edu.fi/VerkkoapajaSearch.asp?path=498,516,37445,703

The national Finnish portal, Edu.fi, makes educational web-based resources and other material available to teachers and learners. At Linkkipaja, resource can be searched according to Finnish educational levels and institutions, as well as by subjects and topics that are part of Finnish educational system. In the example (image 31) a search result for a resource, at the bottom of the description is educational level (kouluaste), aineryhmä (subject area) ja oppiaine (topic) .


Image:EDU_Linkkiapaja_searc-results_copy.png

Image 31. Finnish detailed results description.

[edit] France: Educasources, http://educasources.education.fr/ 

  "not validated"

On the French database for educational resources teachers can search the site by educational level and subject area (image 32.), as well as by using free text search. As seen in the metadata description of the resources (image 33), addition to the two mentioned elements, also keywords are used from the French Thesaurus called Motbis.


Image:Educasourcenew.png

Image 32. French search interface.


Image:Educasources_fr_2new.png

Image 33. A French detailed results description.

[edit] Norway: Utdanning.no, http://utdanning.no/ikt_og_laering

The Norwegian educational portal also offers access to educational resources. In the screen capture the search interface (image 34) where users can search by free text and also by choosing a subject area, the intended audience and the resource type. Below also a detailed search result (image 35).


Image:Norway2 copy.png

Image 34. A Norwegian search interface with a local subject vocabulary.


Image:Norwaycopy.png

Image 35. A Norwegian detailed result description

[edit] Luxembourg: mySchool, http://www.myschool.lu 

  "not validated"

Luxembourg offers to teachers educational material on their school portal. The access is through browse interface, where users can define the school level, and then are exposed to the list of subject areas suitable for that given year (image 36).


Image:Lux copy.png Image 36. Browse interface for learning resources

[edit] The Netherlands, Kennisnet, http://davindiplus.kennisnet.nl 

  "not validated"


The Dutch educational portal Kennisnet offers a search for educational learning resources for all educational levels. There is no direct curriculum related information, but the site offers information visualisation service that shows relationships between some topics, and offers related learning resources, as illustrated in the screen capture below (image 37.)


Image:Kennisnet_infovis_currnew.png

Image 37. A Danish detailed results description with information visualisation showing the connections between terms.

[edit] Sweden: Länkskafferiet, http://lankskafferiet.skolutveckling.se/ 

  "not validated"

On the Swedish Länkskafferiet, which is a database of educational web-links the users can either browse the links or execute a search by using free text, by choosing a terms from a vocabulary-list or by choosing the intended school level (image 38).


Image:Lankskafferietnew.png

Image 38. A Swedish search interface, search by local taxonomy provided in the right hand corner.

[edit] Catalonia: EDU365 portal, http://www.edu365.com

The Catalonian educational portal for children, mostly primary and secondary level, called edu365.com offers a selection of digital learning resources in Catalan. There is no single search interface, but finding resources is provided through browsing different parts of the site’s selections (image 39.). In the example below (image 40.), the access to some primary level resources is given through different areas such as lexicon, ..., grammar, etc.


Image:Edu365.com Matemàtiques Primària copy.png

Image 39. Browsing selections of Catalan resources.


Image:Edu365.com_primaria_muds_areas_copy.png

Image 40. Browsing selections of Catalan resources.

[edit] Conclusions

To answer to the main question, whether European teachers can search for digital learning resources based on their national or local curriculum topics, goals and learning activities, one can conclude based on this small European survey on educational school repositories and portals, that in about one third (1/3) of the surveyed repositories and portals in Europe teachers can find resources with curriculum coverage.

In 43% of the repositories surveyed, teachers can look for material with subject and age level, i.e. indications of the resource’s compliance to the curriculum is based on rather implicit information, such as intended audience and local taxonomy on subject areas and topics, but that the curriculum compliance is not necessarily explicitly indicated in the form of metadata.

In the rest of the repositories and portals (25%) that this survey was able to identify and quickly look into, teachers have less indication of the curriculum coverage.

A European Union’s set goal being to work on cross-border content provision, as well as to find synergies between content providers, such issue of implicit curriculum information can become a hindrance for the educational content to transfer to another educational setting and culture (issues related to the suitability of educational content to “travel” is left outside of this study). Thus, finding solutions that would allow interoperability of vocabularies and taxonomies in this particular area would benefit the European educational community. For example, some interesting outcomes could be anticipated from a European project called CALIBRATE (http://calibrate.eun.org) and MELT (http://melt.eun.org).

[edit] Some pointers to other educational authorities websites with learning resources/software offerings

Greece:


[edit] References

Reflections on eTwinning" (October 2006). European Schoolnet publication. http://www.etwinning.net/shared/data/etwinning/general/pag_ii.pdf


Link to the images: http://wiki.eun.org/life-wiki/index.php/Special:Imagelist


Licence:

This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/be/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License</a>.

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