Learning Objects

1. Learning Objects 1.http://ocw.usu.edu/instructional-technology-learning-sciences/advanced-topics-in-learning-object-design-and-reuse/Textbook.html 2. Wisconsin Online Resource Center (WORC): 3. http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/oopbad.htm 4. Using O2 to Overcome Learning Objects Limitations, a paper from “Learning Objects 2003 Symposium“

2. Definition of Learning Object • There are many of it …

3. What is Learning Object? • “Any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning” • IEEE 1484.12.1-2002, 15 July 2002, Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata, IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC)

4. What is Learning Object? • "modular digital resources, uniquely identified and metatagged, that can be used to support learning" • National Learning Infrastructure Initiative

5. What is Learning Object? • Any digital resource that can be reused to support learning"  • David A. Wiley, "Connecting Learning Objects to Instructional Design Theory" 

6. What is Learning Object? • Adapted from the Wisconsin Online Resource Center (WORC):  • Learning objects are much smaller units of learning, typically ranging from 2 minutes to 15 minutes.  • Are self-contained • Are reusable • Can be aggregated • Are tagged with metadata

7. Recall … (on SCORM)

8. Context of LO & Reusability

9. Context of LO & Reusability

10. (How Big Should a Learning Object Be?) it depends The fundamental tension between using and reusing

11. The Reusability Paradox • Some of the things you do to make a learning object more effective today make it harder to reuse tomorrow. • … the designing you do to make a learning object work well in one instructional situation may actually keep it from working in another.

12. Predicting context in the future? • … Just how exactly is one supposed to design materials to be as effective as possible in a future scenario whose nature is unknown? • If you don't know the context of that future audience of learners, how can you match their context in your examples? How can you be sure to use the right spice?

13. Pull out all the context • Perhaps you just leave all the context out of your instruction.

14. However … • … pulling out all the context would make the instruction much less effective ... • Those examples and pictures and little details are what help people connect instruction to their lives. • If we're not going to have that context, why not just sell everyone encyclopedias?

15. Personalization & Learner’s Context • Personalization? • The things you do to make a learner feel like the instruction is actually relevant to them, instead of dry encyclopedia info. • It's about understanding the context of the learner and meeting them there, speaking their language, and using their examples. …

16. Personalization & Learner’s Context • The difference between a great teacher and a boring one is how much spice they add to the content. • Anybody can stand up there and read their lecture notes or the encyclopedia entry. • The amazing teachers are the ones who can connect the content to your life, show you how it actually affects you and is useful to you, and make you see why you should care.

17. Context is important • Just what is context? • We've been talking about context and how important context is for a while now, but we have yet to really talk about context specifically.

18. Examples

19. Dialogues and Interpretation • (Whining) Come on Mom, can't I please go out with my friends tonight? • No!

20. Dialogues and Interpretation • I'm sorry to call so late madam, but there's been a serious accident involving your husband. • No!

21. Dialogues and Interpretation • (In a news anchor voice) A report of a multi-billion dollar study released by the federal government today suggests that eating less and exercising more can result in significant weight loss. • No!

22. How do you know what "No!" means in each case? • By the words that came before. • So this single, commonplace word can have multiple meanings, and the only way we can determine which meaning we are supposed to understand with any given use is by the context of the conversation in which the use occurs.

23. What does this mean? • So what does this have to do with learning objects? • Is it that the meaning of a fairly straightforward learning object may change depending on the other learning objects it is used together with?

24. How about changing the response? • I'm sorry to call so late madam, but there's been a serious accident involving your husband. • Oh please don't let it be true! • That would certainly have left little room for interpretation • the more words used, the less room is left open for interpretation

25. More words, more context • The more words you use, the more context you add, the more specific you make the suggested meaning, the harder it may be to get that highly-specified, concretized thing to feel like it really fits with any other piece of content?

26. Context can work both way … • We've said that more context can make instruction more effective. • We've also said that more context can get in the way of reusability.

27. How big should a learning object be? • Do you begin to understand why the answer to the question "how big should a learning object be?" is "it depends" ?

28. Back to context issue … • … If every bit of instructional media had to be somehow tailored for each individual who used it? What would happen to the textbook industry?

29. Context and Textbooks • But … you don't buy a textbook, take it home, and learn calculus. You take it home, read it, only get half of it, and then go to class so that a professor *can* tailor it for you. • Huh …, noprofessor I ever had did anything with my textbooks...

30. Role of professor … • You're missing the point. • When the textbook explains a principle one way, and you don't get it, you ask your professor. He then provides a *different* explanation, one he thinks more likely to speak to you. One you'll hopefully have a better chance of understanding.

31. Higher reusability  Less development time? • … The ability to reuse materials should mean shorter development times... • (but) … everyone is ignoring the obvious problems, the hidden costs, talking about how wonderful this component-based approach is ... • Well, we heard the same promises years and years ago in computer programming. …

32. OO and reusability • Object-oriented approaches would facilitate reusability of code, and this would shorten development times, and this would save money, etc., etc. • Well, it's fairly well agreed that the emperor has no clothes.

33. OO and reusability • Sites like OOP Criticism are increasingly popular. • I'm not sure why we should expect learning objects to be any more successful than OOP

34. Hidden cost … • Does your company have a standard process they follow for designing and developing instruction? Has it ever changed, or been updated? • Yes. .. we switched from doing a lot of Authorware / Toolbook authoring for CDs, and started doing everything for the Internet. The dev team is getting into "AJAX" now, but it hasn't affected the design process a lot.

35. Hidden cost … • When you switched platforms from Authorware to the Internet, was it a large change? How long did it take? • Oh it was painful, I can tell you that right now …

36. Hidden cost … • We were months in preparing the process, another two weeks in retraining the designers and developers (and we actually lost a few developers who couldn't make the switch), and then everything was significantly slower for a few months. … • the business people who had been writing RFP responses from the CD-ROM perspective for so long that they couldn't get used to the selling points of our new approach.

37. Hidden cost … • But the costs weren't just in changing the process. … • I know we're going to talk standards eventually, …, but doing metadata for all our new materials takes *forever*. • Everyday there is someone whining about how they went to school to develop cool educational materials, not fill up the card catalog ...

38. Time spends on metadata … • How long does it really take to create a metadata entry for an object? • If we're lucky; I should say if we do things according to process, it only adds about 15 minutes per object.

39. Time spends on metadata … • At 15 minutes per object, you can do four in an hour, a little over 4000 objects... • … just the metadata part of the learning objects approach adds over 1000 hours to the project.

40. Is LO really worth the efforts? • ... Going to all the effort of creating these reusable objects is worth it if you have either "lots" of people to train or "lots" of training to create. • Cisco is always releasing new products worldwide… It's a huge number of people, and a huge amount of training for both sales and support.

41. Internal structure of LO • You might think about it as the architecture of learning objects.

42. Good thing about common architecture • ... When the learning objects all share a common architecture - when we know exactly what we can expect to find in a learning object - it becomes possible to write all sorts of systems that can automatically use and reuse learning objects.

43. Good thing about common architecture • And then all the arguments in favor of intelligent tutoring systems apply to the learning objects approach. • The automated system can keep perfect track of every learner's progress.

44. But … • … How did we get from sharing a common architecture to having intelligent tutoring systems?

45. Because … • … when I know what kind of data I will find inside an object, and how it will be formatted, then I can write algorithms that consume the data and do useful things with them.

46. Back to reality … • How many learning objects are there in the world today that have been developed according to this standard architecture? • None, of course, since no such standard architecture exists, strictly speaking.

47. What about SCORM? • the ADL's SCORM describes a minimal architecture an object must conform with in order to be considered a sharable content object (SCO). • The SCO must have an interface by which it can communicate with a learning management system, in order to report things like time spent on the object and scores made on exams. • Right, a SCORM wrapper. But that has almost nothing to do with the internal structure of the content …

48. SCORM might be the beginning • SCORM is the closest standard we have to the learning object architecture standard

49. Standard architecture of LO? • Well, if there is no standard architecture, there can't be any learning objects that conform to it. • And since the consensus-based standards process is famous for being glacially slow there is very little chance that such a standard will exist any time soon.

50. What's the big deal about having automated systems assemble content? • … (Why not) let people - individuals - take what they need and leave the rest. • They'll provide the context and the sequencing. Who needs a robot to assemble content and spoon-feed it?