1

The Repository of the Portuguese Ministry

of Education:current situation and

looking ahead

2

Present situation

Catalogue of digital educational resources (DER) at the online Resource Centre of the MoE;

Some local repositories maintained by Competence Centres, Teacher Training Centres, Universities, etc.;

Many of these DERs were created in the framework of teacher training courses and workshops.

Competence Centres are local structures, comprising Universities, Schools of Education, associations of Teacher Training Centres, which train and support schools and teachers in the use of ICT. They also undertake research and help define national policies.

3

A few examples

(a) MoECatalogue of different learning resources - not just digital –, maintained by the Resource Centre of the DGIDC.

Present situation

4

A few examples

(b) EdutecaMaintained by a Competence Centre, it contains, among others, WebQuests, Online Treasure Hunts, Quizzes, …

Present situation

5

A few examples

(c) R21 Maintained by a Competence Centre, it is the largest repository of, among others, resources for the use of interactive whiteboards.

Present situation

6

Technological Plan for Education

Objectives:• Technological update of all Basic and Secondary schools;• Promotion of the integration and widespread use of ICT

in teaching, learning and school administration.

Technology

Axes

Contents Training

Schools Portal

• Content Repository

• E-learning platform

7

DER - National Strategy defined around four axes:CreationEvaluation and CertificationDeployment/OrganisationEducational Use/Curriculum Integration.

Preliminary study for development of portal has been finished;Actual implementation will start in November.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

Nati

onal

Str

ateg

y

8

The repository will hold information about commercial and non-commercial DERs as well as non-commercial DERs themselves;

Users will be able to customise their repository;

Statistics will include the identification of popular functions, user surveys and the characterisation of user types (registered users);

The system is intended to be user-friendly;

It revolves around a strong notion of user community, but it is too soon to know what the response will be.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

Som

e sp

ecifi

catio

ns

9

An evaluation and certification system has been designed and implemented (prototype);

It is aimed mainly at certifying commercial products but will also address non-commercial resources;

This system includes support to users of educational digital resources;

3rd phase of training of DER evaluators is underway: a total of 120+ evaluators covering all school subjects and areas;

This evaluation system will be ported to the Schools Portal.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

CERT

RED

10

1st-tier evaluation – commercial products

The publisher applies for certification and the product is analysed by two independent evaluators;

If both evaluations are positive, its publisher can append a quality label to it.

The evaluator will write a report which will be pubicly available in the system.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

Thre

e-tie

r sys

tem

12

2nd-tier evaluation – non-commercial priority resources

This is used for non-commercial products which at any one time, the MoE considers a priority.

Some examples: priority curriculum areas (PAL, Maths, Science); resouces for 1st cycle of Basic Education (Magellan laptops) or for Interactive Whiteboards;

The same evaluation system is used in a mitigated form: just one evaluator who also writes a final report on the DER.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

Thre

e-tie

r Sys

tem

13

3rd-tier evaluation – teacher-made resources

Resources are input by users;

There will be some sort of validation before the resource is publicly available. This validation will include the introduction of metadata.

Community-centred evaluation (a star-system);

Users will be able to tag resources andleave their comments on them.

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

Thre

e-tie

r Sys

tem

14

The Directorate-General for Innovation and Curriculum Development, through its Educational Resource and Technology Team is:

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

• a partner of the ASPECT project;• developing 120 digital resources for PAL in the

framework of this project;• now a member of the EdReNe;• a partner of the European Learning Resource

Exchange network;• Adopting widely used standards;

Part

ners

hips

15

Schools Portal – Digital Educational Resource Repository

• aware of the importance of Creative Commons licensing options;

• currently assessing the need to/interest in adopt/ing the Common Cartridge standard;

• aware of the huge challenges facing the creation of a national-level DER repository;

• happy to join those who are treading/have trodden this same path.D

ecis

ions

and

hop

es The Directorate-General for Innovation and Curriculum

Development, through its Educational Resource and Technology Team is: