Using intelligent learning objects in adaptive educational portals

The learning object (LO) approach is based on the premise that the reuse of learning material is very important to designing learning environments for real-life learning. According to Downes. (2001), Mohan and Brooks (2003), and Sosteric and Hesemeier (2002), a learning object is an entity of learning content that can be used several times in different courses or in different situations. One of the benefits of the reusability is that it significantly reduces the time and cost required to develop e-learning courses. For Friesen (2001), reusability is given as a result of three features: interoperability, discoverability, and modularity. The interoperability is the capability of working in different environments. The discoverability is the capability of being discovered based on the educational content. The modularity is the capability of having learning material that can be, at the same time, big enough to be coherent and unitary and small enough to be reused. These features would be very useful if added to pedagogical agents (PA) (Johnson and Shaw, 1997)