The role of LOs in building teachers communities of learning

Despite numerous efforts in the past years, the sharing of experiences and innovative ideas related to educational technology are still limited. We think that a targeted use of the learning object paradigm could contribute to modify this situation. To this end, we devised an approach to pre-service teacher training which aims to build a common ground of shared conceptual and pedagogical knowledge, based on the use of LOs. In our opinion, two different kinds of initiatives are important in this respect: 1) to reshape the preparation on Educational Information and Communication Technology of future teachers; 2) to develop technological tools, centred on repositories, supporting the creation and development of learning communities of teachers exchanging ideas and experiences by means of LO-related work. For this sake, we designed and implemented LODE (Learning Objects Discussion Environment), a prototype of collaborative environment oriented to the mentioned kind of activity. An initial use of this environment in a teacher training course highlighted the tendency of trainee teachers to use LOs in order to get ideas for their work rather than as ready-to-use chunks of educational materials. It also highlighted the need to include into LOs’ repositories hints for the construction of educational paths.