What do I mean by material? The dictionary definition is the substance or substances out of which a thing is or can be made. The material in the learning process is that which you are trying to communicate. This is not necessarily a tangible object; an idea or thought can also be the material.

Material is more than mere data that is presented to students. Data are raw facts or the building blocks of information. "Information is data with structure, relationships and detail of its derivation such that it can impart knowledge" (Bryan, M. Of Data and Information.).

Think of data as characters such as letters, numbers, hyphens, etc. Characters make up words which make up sentences and so forth. Characters by themselves convey no meaning; words on the other hand do. Sentences convey more meaning that just words. Now these characters must be arranged in an order that we understand. For instance, “parlez” to someone who does not speak French looks like a misspelled word or jumble of letters. To the French, it is the same as the English word “speak”.

So the material must be information or ideas, and it must be complete and organized.