2006 ORION Learning Award of Merit Winner

The Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE)

CLOE Director Kevin Harrigan accepting the ORION Learning Award of Merit at the 2006 Award presentations in Toronto June 5, 2006.



The Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE) is an internationally-recognized collaboration between Ontario universities and colleges and other partners in Canada and abroad that makes use of new technologies to develop and share multimedia-rich learning resources. CLOE depends extensively on the ORION network to carry out communications and data transfer.

Through the CLOE Learning Object repository, each of the 28 connected institutions develops multimedia learning resources to address instructional challenges shared by the other partners. This sharing allows schools to adapt their learning objects to solve problems which they may feel is unique at their institution. CLOE has had a significant influence on the development of high-quality learning resources, enriching the educational experience of many successful Ontario students over the years.

Among CLOE’s greatest measures of success is the level of collaboration it has generated among participating institutions, making use the members’ interconnectivity enabled by ORION and other networks. CLOE’s most long term collaboration includes the MERLOT organization in the US using the American Internet network, and lately there have been a couple of research projects with European organizations – one at Oxford, and one in the Netherlands.

Two significant projects currently underway at CLOE include the CLOE Wiki and the CLOE Worktool. The CLOE Wiki – a discussion area for the entire CLOE community – brings together a geographically remote community with seamless connection. The second project, the CLOE Worktool, is an on-line team environment that keeps all members up-to-date with project announcements and documentation, information about learning object evaluation and various tools that allow interaction with individual project teams.

Every year, CLOE puts together Camp CLOE, an intensive training event held in the first week of May at the University of Waterloo's FLEX (Flexible Learning Experience) Lab. At camp CLOE, registrants enjoy workshops that feature learning communities, instructional design, accessibility, project management, evaluation and technology issues. During the first two camp CLOE sessions, attendees acquired knowledge on how to build highly interactive, learner-centered, learning objects. This year’s Camp CLOE taught attendee’s the latest R&D development: how to use templates for more rapid development of learning objects.

CLOE provides access and guidance for the creation of effective instructional e-learning objects that support the work of researchers and educators to enhance our students’ experiences. This online community is continuously improving the quality of learning for our students, making Ontario an excellent environment for academia to flourish.

For more information on CLOE, visit their web site at: http://cloe.on.ca.

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