Virtual Learning Categories

(With apologies for the messed-up link formatting -- I think this is due to aggregator or RSS version incompatibilities.)

Categorization of virtual learning activities.

In the paper {filerMacros.LinkSz("peter/articles/icl-categorization.pdf","Ontological stratification of virtual learning activities - Developing a new categorization scheme" )} we suggest a new categorization scheme for (virtual) learning environments. Our model consists of three different levels:

1. Level of educational scenarios
2. Level of educational interaction patterns
3. Level of tools for virtual learning activities (LMS, CMS etc.)

Our description is guided by an underlying theoretical model of (e)learning inspired from the so-called "theory of ontological stratification” - by Michael Polany. The epistemological main point of our categorization approach is the exploartion of the relationship between the higher level (educational scenarios) and lower level (interaction patterns).

This paper will be presented at the "ICL Workshop" in Villach, 25th September 2003.

3:13:30 PM    

Educational Interaction Patterns

(With apologies for the messed-up link formatting -- I think this is due to aggregator or RSS version incompatibilities.)

An Example of LOM Categorization.

Based on the didactical scenario approach by {filerMacros.LinkSz("peter/articles/icl-categorization.pdf","Baumgartner/Bergner" )} we explore in the paper {filerMacros.LinkSz("peter/articles/icl-lom.pdf","Educational Models and Interaction Patterns for Instruction - An example of LOM Categorization")} over 50 educational interaction patterns, which are the components of every learning scenario. In contrast to the traditional literature, which is mostly lacking in granularity, we think that schools as well as other institutions of education need a more detailed description. The aim is to break down educational scenarios into smaller units (interaction patterns) that can be handled by teachers. Following this approach they can plan their classes and choose the adequate technical tools for the virtual learning experience.

For teachers' and trainers' convenience these 50 interaction patterns are presented on a new website using the CMS Frontier/Manila. Please note that the website is still under construction.

The data are categorized in conformance with the recommendation of the IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Learning Object Metadata standard. Our paper discusses and describes the implementation as described in the Final Draft of the LOM recommendation(PDF, 166 kB).

3:10:15 PM    

Patterns help introduce patterns (or any new idea) .

"Through the 1990s, a new movement in software development called patterns gained momentum. Inspired by the thinking of the building architect Christopher Alexander, a group of smart guys authored 23 patterns for software design as "a way to analyze solutions to recurring problems, make them reusable and communicate them." Patterns collected together form a working language that help systems architects and programmers cope with the complexity of software systems." [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE]

Following up on an earlier relayed post here on introducing new ideas into organizations. This is potentially useful to e-Learning entrepreneurs who are working with clients bringing e-Learning into their organizations. It also connects, in a way, to thinking about templates and (perhaps) reusable objects for designing e-Learning.

10:53:21 AM    

IE, Flash, and patents: here comes trouble.

"Microsoft has again been told to cripple its market-leading browser in compliance with the Eolas patent lawsuit. IE/Windows will no longer be able to seamlessly play Flash, Quicktime, PDF, and other rich media formats. Other browser makers like Netscape and Opera may also be forced to cripple their browsers, making the web look like 1993 all over again. Clumsy, disruptive workarounds that diminish user experience might allow browsers to present rich media files, but site owners would have to pay for development -- and Eolas might sue anyway. The patent ruling will hurt everyone. Patents on the web are always bad, but this one stinks to Heaven. We find ourselves rooting for Microsoft." [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report]

There will be a round or two of appeals, and it also looks like Microsoft is working on ways to get around the crippling mandated by this ruling, but ... it would be a good thing to start thinking about how we are going to deliver rich media over the Web if this works out the wrong way. Watch for response also from Macromedia, Adobe, and other vendors whose product success depends on plug-ins working in Internet Explorer.

10:29:32 AM    

What I learnt was that despite the many exciting advances we've made in working with these instructional quanta, the concept of RLOs is still light years (no pun on Einstein) from most teacher's every day lives (and I expect those of learners though it was primarily a conference for teachers). Exactly what an RLO is, why they're important, more importantly exactly how you might use them, and even more fundamentally, what tools you might use to do these things were issues about as far away from everyday teaching as you could imagine, at least for most people. There was a tangible feeling of 'so what' about much of the RLO discussion, at least amongst the non-techies. As an aside the techie discussions about RLOs was very constructive but more about that in a later post.

The biggest issue is I think the lack of inexpensive, easily available, easy to use desktop tools, for without such tools people can't experiment, try out for themselves, and get their hands dirty with RLOs. Sure, there are some great tools out there but many are either development projects or are sophisticated systems yet to make a big impact on campuses. Also true, many of the popular VLE vendors sell products that claim to use learning objects, but often these are not low-level or low aggregation RLOs, the systems are not proper content management systems nor do they offer the kinds of authoring tools that authors need.

What we are going to need before working with RLOs becomes as familiar as word processing or at a stretch web page creation are studies on the ergonomics of RLOs, human computer interaction studies, and a deeper analysis of how educators can use RLOs to built teaching packages and more importantly how RLOs are going to benefit the learning process. We need a tool for RLOs just as familiar a word processor is for words. Though please not like Microsoft Word ;-)

[David Davies' Weblog]

Comments later. Is it possible that RLOs are "unattainable objects?"

8:03:23 AM    

Interactive Visual Explainers.

"Interactives are one of the first experiments in interactive journalism. They are brief Web-based interactive visual explainers. They are designed to explain complex concepts or ideas. Of late, they are usually created in Macromedia Flash or Macromedia Director. Since the practice is new, different names are used to describe it -- 'Flash Infographics,' 'Motion Graphics,' and 'Interaction Graphics' are some we've come across. We like 'Interactives' because it embodies interaction -- the building block of the Web -- and thus does not bring across any preconceived notions from the print world." [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE]

The actual article here is by Maish at elearningpost.com, and this is relayed through xBlog. Interactives are a journalistic initiative at present, but there certainly are parallels and applications to e-Learning and to EPSS. We used to call them "advance organizers" in formal instructional design. These interactive visual explainers are still pretty much "lectures in boxes" or encyclopedia entries with moving pictures and sound, despite the name. However, the name is catchy and you may find yourself having the opportunity to craft some "interactives" for clients.

10:22:31 PM    

Rant: Usability Testing in Online Distance Learning

Usability Testing to Improve Online Writing Classes. We used the results of a usability testing study to revise online sections of ENG 102 (First-Year Composition). In addition, we wrote two sets of guidelines to share with faculty interested in developing distance learning courses and conducting usability testing to improve online course design. [Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) Newest]

The item cited says, in part:

"Online distance learning courses are usually designed, developed, and structured in a manner that "makes sense" to the instructor. A vast majority of the time the instructor not only has more experience with the course content material, but also with the course delivery material (web pages, courseware, discussion boards, etc.). Therefore, the instructor has the advantage of a more detailed understanding of the "logical" organizational patterns between the course content and course delivery interface.

When a new online distance-learning student accesses the course, however, both the course content material and the course delivery environment may overwhelm him or her. Without knowledge of the content (which is the point of him or her being in the class, to learn the content) or experience with the specific online delivery interface (even if s/he is an "experienced" online learner, s/he may be new to different types of environments), the student is at a distinct disadvantage in starting the course."

Let me begin by saying that in my opinion it is a fine thing that this study has been done and published. But ...

I truly mean no disrespect here, but wasn't Malcolm Knowles telling us this thirty years ago, in a different context (but the same idea)? And Bob Mager, and Ruth Clark, and Tom Gilbert, and Alan Cooper, and and and? Didn't we at least hear about, if not learn, this when we were writing programmed instruction, authoring PLATO and Phoenix modules, building courseware for delivery on CD-ROM?

Some things apparently have to be re-learned by each generation of instructional designers. I often wonder why this happens if instructional design is a profession, when I don't notice that engineers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, and bricklayers (to name a few professional classes) don't have to keep re-learning the basics. These professionals have to learn new stuff, but the basics are pretty fundamental, taught to and mastered by everyone before they can call themselves a professional.

It isn't that "e-Learning is in it's infancy." Not when we are talking about a fundamental issue in instructional design. Do you wonder why it's a constant struggle to get accepted, when individual CEOs have been exposed to the same learning/training buzzwords over and over for the last forty years, each time with the buzzword connected to a new delivery medium? And why are we still talking about "delivering the material?"

OK, I feel better now.  Go read the article and promise that you will always think about how your application is going to look to your learner and how they are going to deal with it. To paraphrase Alan Cooper in About Face: The Fundamentals of User Interface Design, people don't want e-Learning. They really don't even want learning, much less training. People want to succeed.

10:57:18 PM    

Bill Joy: Why the future doesn't need us. [Scripting News]

Bill Joy was the chief scientist with Sun until this week, when he resigned. This article appeared in Wired in April, 2000.

"From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things."

This is still an outstanding piece that in my opinion should be read, studied, and understood by all of us who would take leadership of enterprises, technology, and thought.

6:51:55 PM    

Is Instructional Design Becoming A Commodity?

"The ascension of Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) and their increasingly automated authoring processes may be marginalizing the craft, if not the science, of instructional design. All the templates, wizards, and other productivity tools that come bundled into the leading LCMS platforms have certainly made it easier to assemble and deploy structured learning content. But will we see better online learning, or simply more? "

[ELearn Magazine]

Jerry Murphy is struggling with the "good-fast-cheap" choice in developing e-Learning. He asks:

"you want a new kitchen--do you call an architect or a builder? These are not mutually exclusive choices, but different ends of a spectrum (and you’ll need a builder regardless). The question comes down to approach: a custom solution, crafted with your specific needs in mind, or a template solution with a lot of generalizations and assumptions built in."

I maintain that "good-fast-cheap" leaves out a key element: the intelligence and experience of the instructional designer. The difference between a piece of furniture built by a master carpenter and one built by a kid in Wood Shop at the local school isn't due to the tools - the tools may well be identical. The difference isn't in the amount of time it took to build the piece - the master carpenter may well have done the job more quickly. The difference is in the experience and the maturity of the master carpenter.

In my opinion, instructional design is simply a tool. If anything is becoming a commodity, it's e-Learning itself. Much of the pressure we feel when a project has to be done quickly is due to factors other than the requirements of instructional design. If we haven't understood the business problem correctly, if we haven't done the networking ahead of time to know to whom we could go for fast, expert help, if we haven't built the necessary rapport with the decision makers, then we are going to be caught in a time bind. We will see development continuing to be passed to in-house SMEs who will build e-Learning that is not good, but it is fast and cheap.

10:31:08 AM    

How to use weblogs in WebCT

"I currently have an Announcements feed active in all five WebCT courses. This contains communication items which is relevant to all. This week, I'll add a Resources feed specific to the individual courses. The Resources feed will actually be separate categories in the course weblog, so the content will be unique. (But the Search feature will allowing searching through all items in the course blog - I teach web and programming topics, so the integration of this content should make sense.)  ...

I'm looking forward to adding the weblog technology to the distance courses and feel there will be many benefits to both the learners and me. "
[carvingCode]

Randy has been working on this for some time. He is finding ways to make WebCT a more useful tool for distance learning. If you are providing distance courses for clients within WebCT, this could be a great value-add.

Thanks to James Farmer for spotting this item.

10:07:04 AM    

"Segue is based on a publishing model of content delivery which regards faculty not as course managers but as authors and/or editors and students as contributors/collaborators. Indeed, Segue encourages the publication of course work (where appropriate) and opens the classroom to the world community. At the same time, Segue allows for a site to become a personal workspace, where site owners can develop ideas in a private web-based environment accessible anywhere; or a community workspace, where individuals or groups can share ideas amongst only themselves."

[James Farmer's Radio Weblog]

A little more from the site: "Segue is an open source content management system designed for e-learning that combines the ease of use of course management systems with the flexibility of weblogs for creating various types of sites including course, news, journal, peer review and e-portfolio. When integrated into an institution's administrative systems, it can become a portal providing access to an indivual user's course and personal websites."

This is a collaborative learning system that could have a number of uses. It offers more flexibility than WebCT and Blackboard, but I am not certain as to whether, for example, individual postings can be individually cited as we can with a weblog. Since it is open source, presumably one could add whatever one requires even if the capability did not exist right out of the box. Worth looking at as a potential solution for clients who need to solve the problem of collaboration online.

9:57:14 AM    

Macromedia updates Web tools.

The company releases the first major update to its MX line of Web development and design tools.

The MX 2004 product line includes a new flavor of Flash, Macromedia's set of tools for creating applications, interfaces and animated graphics using the widespread Flash format. Flash MX 2004 Professional uses a forms-based interface similar to that used by programming environments such as Microsoft's widely used Visual Basic. The regular version of Flash MX 2004 will use the timeline-based interface familiar to long-term Flash developers.

Macromedia has acknowledged that broader acceptance of Flash as a development environment is necessary to realize Macromedia's goal of transforming the animation format into a broad foundation for delivering Web content and services. The company is working on another Flash variation, code-named Royale, that will use a text-based interface intended to appeal to developers accustomed to working with Java.

[CNET News.com]

11:05:43 PM    

LESTER: Learning Science and Technology Repository (Rice University)

"LESTER (Learning Science and Technology Repository), an online community and database focused on innovations in learning science and technology (LST), profiles innovative research projects and researchers. Registered users can add, update, or modify records about their projects and organization, thereby keeping the information accurate and up-to-date.

Developed by Rice University's ETRAC with the support of Microsoft Research, LESTER supports the development and application of innovative learning methods and technologies. Users can search or browse the database of over 800 records, participate in online discussions, contribute new information, or read more about LESTER."

[LESTER]

There is, unfortunately, no RSS feed at LESTER. You must join in order to access the database, however, membership is free.

4:42:36 PM    

Two reviews of open source CMS

(Forwarded from EdTechPost)

Assessment of 5 leading open source CMS from Commonwealth of Learning.

Not sure how this one got past me, must have been the summer doldrums, but back in June this report commissioned by the Commonwealth of Learning evaluating the field of current open source course management systems was released. It provides a fairly extensive analysis of the 5 shortlisted products (Moodle, LON-CAPA, ILIAS, dotLRN and ATutor) and ends up recommending ATutor for adoption with ILIAS coming in second.

It's an interesting recommendation. One could contrast it with the recent piece from Rob Reynolds at xplana that looked at some of the same products, but with a very different evaluation framework. It's also a bit unfortunate that it wasn't able to assess Stanford's Coursework, which was only then being released. I guess the other small fault I would find with it is that it takes a naive view of product selection based on feature assessment, as it simply provides a total of the various assessments, thus considering all features as being of equal weight, though it does separate out systemic issues from functional features. And if I was the Moodle guy, I think I might cry foul over a few of their 'subjective assessments.' Still, a very worthwhile resource and reference. - SWL

[EdTechPost]

I am simply forwarding this post, for two reasons. First, because many e-Learning entrepreneurs seem to be unaware that Open Source LMS exist, and second, because it is a major chore to locate Open Source LMS and these reviews at least identify the frontrunners.

Open Source can substantially reduce the amount of time and money it takes to develop and implement an LMS. However, it does take talent on board to do the job. There is also the issue of the client's IT department -- if they are not favorably disposed to Open Source, you, as the entrepreneurial vendor, have a fight on your hands.

4:32:28 PM