Reuse, repurposing and learning design – Lessons from the DART project

Digital Anthropological Resources for Teaching (DART) is a major project examining ways in which the use of online learning activities and repositories can enhance the teaching of anthropology and, by extension, other disciplines. This paper reports on one strand of DART activity, the development of customisable learning activities that can be repurposed for use in multiple contexts. Three examples of these activities are described and, based on their use and reuse, some key lessons for the learning technology community are identified. In particular, it is argued that repurposing is a route to successful reuse, and that engaging the teacher in a participative design process is an essential part of the repurposing process.