The LTC is actively involved in the design, development, production and cataloguing of learning objects through various projects.

View some of the latest learning objects we have developed.

Working with the UM Libraries, the LTC has been actively involved in the creation of a local Learning Object Repository. Formed as a community in MSpace, the Libraries' digital repository, the LOR is designed to hold digital content/assets/resources with defined learning objectives. It can include simulations, exercises, diagrams, figures, narrative text, experiments, exams or assets in other learning formats.

The LTC acts as the institutional project director for the University of Manitoba's membership in the Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE), a collaboration between Canadian universities and colleges for the development, sharing, and reuse of multimedia-rich learning resources.

What is a learning object?

"Learning Objects" can be a vague term - and they have been defined in many different ways. Stephen Downes articulated perhaps the most prevalent rationale for creating and sharing learning objects:

"Now for the premise: the world does not need thousands of similar descriptions of sine wave functions available online. Rather, what the world needs is one – or maybe a dozen, at most – descriptions of sine wave functions available online.
    The reasons are manifest. If some educational content, such as a description of sine wave functions, is available online, then it is available worldwide. So even if only one such piece of educational content were created, it could be accessed by each of the thousands of educational institutions teaching the same material.
    Moreover, educational content is not inexpensive to produce. Even a plain web page, authored by a mathematics professor, can cost hundreds of dollars. Include graphics and a little animation and the price is double. Add an interactive exercise and the price is quadrupled.
    Suppose that one description of the sine wave function is produced. A high quality and fully interactive piece of learning material could be produced for, say, a thousand dollars. If a thousand institutions share this one item, the cost is a dollar per institution. But if each of a thousand institutions produces a similar item, then each institution must pay a thousand dollars, or the institutions, collectively, must pay a million dollars. For one lesson. In one course.
    The economics are relentless. It makes no financial sense to spend millions of dollars producing multiple versions of similar learning objects when single versions of the same objects could be shared at a much lower cost per institution. There will be sharing, because no institution producing its own materials on its own could compete with institutions sharing learning materials."