Project Based Approach to Content Creation

The expansion of new technologies and the World Wide Web is having a tremendous impact in education. Today technology is used as a teaching aid as well as an educational management tool. These trends are making e-learning an indispensable teaching and learning tool, replacing in some cases more traditional teaching methods. One of the issues normally encountered in the implementation of new courses, specially the ones implemented by independent instructors or in small projects, is the creation of content and implementation into the learning management system (LMS). The reasons are mainly the lack of time that faculty can devote to this end and in some cases, the gap between the content expert, the pedagogical expert, and the technology expert. In this study we propose a project based learning approach to the creation of content by students. This approach takes advantage of a collaborative environment created among students and instructors producing benefits for both. There are several important outcomes. First, a collection of modules that can be used with future researchers and trainees. Second the creation of a module is used as an evaluation tool that provides the instructor with a well developed explanation of the student’s work. Finally the students have a powerful constructivist experience expressing their knowledge and ideas.