ARED: Applications for Rapid E-learning Development
Many registered training organisations and enterprises do not have the capacity to create their own educationally sound e-learning resources. This project aims to research, define and develop applications for rapid e-learning development. The project will produce ready-made, re-usable interactions that can be used by developers to generate high quality, cost effective
e-learning resources.
This project will be of interest to:
- e-learning resource developers
- managers of e-learning resource development organisations and departments.
The benefits of providing ready-made, reusable interactions is that individual teams engaged in e-learning development would be able to apply these assets with a reduced overhead in design and development. This would assist experienced teams to develop resources more quickly, and less experienced teams to deliver content that may have normally been outside their skills or available resources.
A number of video/audio clips are provided which overview the project concept and developments.
Ready, Set, Develop! New Practices project creates applications for rapid e-learning development.
The ARED project (Applications for Rapid E-learning Development) provides e-learning developers with the building blocks for the rapid development of complex e-learning components. Rapid development is a concept that has gained a lot of ground in the IT sector and is now gaining ground in e-learning development. 'The VET landscape is changing and there is a growing need for highly modularised, just-in-time e-learning solutions to meet the reduced timelines and various demands from industry,' explains Pasquale Stella, Project Manager for the ARED project.
The team at Holmesglen noticed that many e-learning products were reproducing similar types of interactions which they termed 'archetypal' interactions. The team have 'captured' these interactions and are developing these as 'interaction objects', objects that developers can use to rapidly develop e-learning materials. The benefits to developers are considerable as the development of educationally sound interactive components can be a time-consuming task.
A significant feature of the 'interaction objects' is that they will be editable without the need for any programming input - 'the team has kept the usability of these materials at the forefront of development, so that using these interaction objects will be as easy as editing a document with a text editor!' The team will achieve this ease-of-use by making good use of the Flash parsing agent and considering the latest developments in learning object design. The team at Holmesglen have been involved in other cutting-edge projects and have been actively involved in the VET sector's move towards a learning object approach in other projects (eg the Flexible Learning Toolboxes project). Additionally, consideration has been given to some of the issues currently running in learning object circles and the project addresses some of these issues whilst delivering sound pedagogy.
 Above: ARED Project team members (left to right) –
Laura Bito, Graphic Artist; Vlad Mezin, Lead Developer; Pasquale Stella, Project Manager; Adam Lemmo, Developer – seen grappling with an ARED concept. This project will be conducted by Holmesglen Institute of TAFE, Victoria.
For further information on all New Practices in Flexible Learning projects please contact the Project Management Team by email on newpractices@westone.wa.gov.au or phone
(08) 9229 5331 or 0418 951 601.
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About this project 
