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Workshops & Courses 

研讨会与课程

W-23

Workshop 

Create an open-access online learning module to share your own tropical biology research

Saturday, June 27th, 2026

Organizer(s):
Ann Russell, Iowa State University
Description
Agile online open educational resources that immerse learners in real-world tropical research can make learning experiences more inclusive for students. This also provides them with transformative educational experiences that prepare them to tackle pressing needs in tropical biology and conservation. A new network, OCELOTS (Online Content for Experiential Learning of Tropical Systems), is supporting the creation and implementation of open-source online modules by bringing together a diverse community of tropical biology researchers and experts in active-learning pedagogy, interactive data tools, multimedia content creation. This workshop will provide an overview of Gala, a free, user-friendly platform available for tropical biologists to create innovative, multi-lingual, online modules. In this hands-on workshop, we will introduce participants to a process that enables tropical biologists with no prior programming experience to turn their field-based research into engaging multimedia-enhanced online modules. The Gala platform enables authors to embed multilingual content, data learning tools, and interactive media into their research-based modules. We will demonstrate how to create a module on the Gala platform and showcase examples of existing OCELOTS modules. Participants are encouraged to bring their own ideas for new modules and will receive feedback as they initiate the process of creating their own research-based module. We will provide information about our upcoming workshops for creating new modules and adopting existing modules into courses. Through this workshop, we aim to empower tropical biologists to translate their research into online teaching resources for undergraduate students across the globe. The goal is also to broaden participation in this new OCELOTS network and to bring together researchers from both the Paleotropics and Neotropics, so that we can learn from each other how to refine the process of module creation. Through this participatory process, we aim to increase access to engaging instructional material, to broaden international involvement of tropical researchers, to connect participants in this new OCELOTS network early on, and to allow for true co-construction of knowledge that moves us forward in creating, adapting, and adopting these new learning materials, modules based on authentic research in tropical biology and conservation.
Program Outline

Introduction

Ice-breaker: Everyone introduces themselves
10 minutes

Introduction to OCELOTS
5 minutes

Introduction to the online platform, Gala
10 minutes

Introduction to Interactive data tools
5 minutes

Activity 1: Explore the existing OCELOTS modules

15 minutes

Form small groups, introduce yourselves. Check out modules and discuss:

What are your impressions of these modules? What aspects make them engaging?

Do you see some interesting interactive data tools, applications for 4DEE?

Live Demonstration: Creating a module on Gala

10 minutes

Activity 2: Create your own module

25 minutes

Brainstorming ideas for your own module

How easy is it to use the Gala authoring tools?

Practice using Gala in small groups

Turn to your neighbor/group to share

Open Discussion

10 minutes

What are your ideas for modules?

What questions do you have about creating a module?

What questions do you have about integrating 4DEE into materials?

What ideas do you have for using the modules in teaching?

Individual work with organizer’s help to start creating a module

20 minutes

Wrap-up, how to get more involved in OCELOTS

10 minutes

Materials that participants need to bring:

Each participant needs to bring their own laptop.

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