RESOURCE-BASED LEARNING: WHAT IS IT?

Resource-based learning actively involves students, teachers and teacher-librarians in the effective use of a wide range of print, non print and human resources. Resource-based learning fosters the development of individual students by accommodating their varied interests, experiences, learning styles, needs and ability levels. Students who use a wide range of resources in various mediums for learning have the opportunity to approach a theme, issue or topic of study in ways which allow for a range of learning styles and access to the theme or topic via cognitive or affective appeals.

When students engage in their own problem solving or research process with appropriate teacher support and supervision, they are more likely to take responsibility for their learning and to retain the information they gather for themselves.

In a resource-based learning environment, teachers encourage students to use a variety of resources to seek information and solve problems. Students and teachers make decisions about appropriate sources of information and tools for learning and how to access them. They use:

• a range of print resources such as text books, novels, magazines, newspapers, World Wide Web texts and library reference works
• multimedia technologies such as videotape and videodisk, CD-ROM, software tools and simulation/modeling tools
• primary documents such as historic records, original studies and reports, legislative documents
• computer networking and telecommunications for both data access and participation in learning communities
• their school library/resource/media centers to locate and use many of these resources
• their local communities for the rich supply of materials, human resources and information provided by businesses, social service agencies, citizens' groups, teachers' centers, public and university libraries, cultural federations, theatres and cinemas
• the mass media - cable and network television, radio broadcasts, and other national and international print and electronic services

It is necessary that administrators, teachers, teacher-librarians, other library/media/resource/media centre staff, parents and community agencies collaborate to ensure students' access to available resources to support resource- based teaching and learning.

Resource-based learning is student-centered. Students are actively involved and more accountable for their own learning. Classroom teachers and their partners in education need to do much more than simply ensure access or provide the wide range of appropriate learning resources; they must ensure that the students' learning environment is properly structured, so that learning will occur. Skills for accessing, evaluating, using, and applying information are carefully targeted, ensuring that students meet the outcomes for information literacy identified in the approved curriculum and instructional programs. Learning is facilitated by teachers who understand their critical role, always promoting student involvement and interaction, and assessing learning in ways that ensure that more than simple content (or the "right answer") is learned. With this increased emphasis on the development of skills and strategies, (and on critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and creativity,) our students will be better prepared to become lifelong learners, capable of independent and informed decision-making.

Resource-Based Learning in the Atlantic Core Curriculum

Since resource-based learning, and ultimately, the development of information literacy, has become such an important component in the Atlantic core curriculum for the public education system, the responsibility for implementing this approach is shared by all educators. Teacher-librarians who are experienced in resource-based learning will provide support and offer to collaborate with classroom and subject area teachers who may be less familiar with the approach. Many of the outcomes for student learning are aimed at the development of information literacy. These will be best achieved when a resource-based learning approach is planned and implemented in a collaborative manner throughout the curriculum at all grade levels, across the school and formal educational experience of all students. Information literacy outcomes are not effectively developed in isolation, integration with the school's curriculum is essential.

Information Literacy is clearly articulated in these Essential Graduation Learnings for Atlantic Canada:

• Problem-solving
• Communication
• Technological Competence

Guided Hypermedia Projects

It is a self-made multimedia projects that you can use for your instruction or discussion. It can be approached in two different ways: 
1. As an Instructive tool , such as in the production by the students of a power point presentation.
You can apply this in your discussion.It is easy for the teacher to catch up the  attention of the students because they love moving letters or pictures and also sounds and the teacher can discussed well the topic because of its beautiful visual aid which is suitable for the topic.


2. As a communication tool when students do a multimedia presentation to stimulate a television news show.
It is easy for the teacher to discuss about news or literature if they have tools like television or you can use your own video clips in order to present the topic they wanted. 

Project Management Software

Project management software by Project Insight is the leading solution in the mid-market. Many high end portfolio and project management systems are overkill for many project teams. Most low end and free project management tools lack functionality for the more experienced project manager. Project Insight bridges savvy project managers, who require robust project management features, with team members that want an easy to use project management solution.

The portfolio, project and resource management and collaboration features of Project Insight are second to none. With advanced functionality like intelligent scheduling, project managers can leverage task dependencies to shift tasks on schedules with minimal effort. For resource managers, our cross project resource allocation allows the balancing of work across all projects in the portfolio using drag and drop.

Project team members know what to work on as tasks are distributed to their personalized portals in real-time. They are empowered to update their own activities and work with just a couple of clicks. Now project managers no longer have to run around asking for status updates!

Projects and tasks are updated in real-time allowing management and executives to view project status with dashboards and reports. No more waiting for manual report updates.

Set up is easy. If you know how to fill out a web form, you can set our software up within a day. Our project solution does not require a full time employee to manage the administration either. With robust permissions, administrators can control what team members see. Custom fields and forms may be added rapidly without any programming, but if you would like to integrate or extend the software, we offer software development tools like our SDK and Web Services APIs.

Project Management Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) or On Premise Project Management Software

Project Insight offers project teams the flexibility they need. The software may be managed by us hosted in Level 3 data center facilities (SaaS), or may be installed on premise or in your preferred data center or cloud computing provider.

Built Using PMI Project Management Standards

Manage projects in your portfolio following Project Management Institute, Inc.'s (PMI) standards. Our project and portfolio software was developed with PMI and PMBOK® (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) in mind.

Microsoft Standards

If your organization standardizes on Microsoft Office software and systems, then you will be glad to know that Project Insight is a Microsoft .NET based solution. Our portfolio, project and resource management tool has been platform certified by Microsoft. Project Insight, collaborative project management software is part of the Microsoft certified independent software vendor (ISV) program. Metafuse, the developers of Project Insight, web project management software, is a Microsoft Gold Partner and Developer, so you can be sure that our software was developed with the best and latest industry standards.