Wrapping Learning Components as SCOs

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Wrapping Learning Components as SCOs

• Thor Anderson
• ID2SCORM Conference
• March 5th, 2003

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Agenda

• What the SCO gives us today
• Extending what the SCO contains in two
  directions
• Fine grain representation of the content itself
• Gross grained, agreed upon software interfaces
• Critical attributes of a Learning Component

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SCOs contain Assets

• Section 2.1.1.1 in SCORM Content Aggregation Model

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SCOs wrapped with interface code

• Section 2.1.1.2 SCORM Content Aggregation Model

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SCOs and Assets can be aggregated

• Section 2.1.1.3 SCORM Content Aggregation Model

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Summary

• Assets may have metadata
• SCOs may contain Assets and additionally have
  metadata and implement the run-time communication
  interface
• SCOs and Assets may be aggregated into a cohesive
  unit of instruction

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SCORM Advantages

• Metadata allows uniform description and discovery
• Run_Time Environment rules could make content
  interoperable and reusable between LMSs
• Packaging provides uniform import/export
  capabilities
• Introduction of Sequencing could yield more
  advanced and adaptive course structures

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Possible areas for Improvements

• Interoperability and Reuse focused from LMS point
  of view
• What about from a content authors point of view?
• Where is the instructional design reuse or
  interoperability?
• Run-Time communication bound to particular
  technologies
• Could you realistically use something other than
  JavaScript in SCOs?
• And my key points today
• Assets could be more than black boxes o
  content
• What if the granular content itself were defined
  in XML?
• Interfaces for more than basic technology needs
• What if there were specific instructional
  interfaces that your learning components could
  implement?

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Assets as black boxes

• At the core of every Asset is an unknown thing
• It could be an HTML page with JavaScript and
  Flash
• It could be an image in a variety of formats
• It could be a Java applet
• It could be a server generated page (ASP, JSP,
  etc.)

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Assets as XML

• It is possible today to have some assets that are
  fully described in XML
• This allows for almost unlimited manipulation of
  the asset for instructional purposes

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Example

• Asset taken from a Nursing course on
  gastro-intestinal system
• Not resizable
• Simple image maps show name when mouse rolls over
  letter
• No ability to alter image without copying bitmap
  into graphics editor and having some skills for
  this
• Not designed for a particular instructional goal

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SVG Example

• Same image converted to Scalable Vector Graphics
  format
• Standard from W3C
• All image info captured in XML
• Looks the same to me. What is the big deal?
• This graphic is much more flexible and reusable
• I changed the color of the stomach with Notepad
• Dont believe me - demand a demo!

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Instructional Uses

• Beyond the mere flexibility of vector graphics in
  XML, SVG supports the addition of scripting
  languages
• Example mines.svg uses JavaScript
• What is the significance to a SCO if the assets
  themselves could respond to user events?
• If those events were related to some
  instructional outcome, wouldnt it be nice if the
  asset could relay those events to the SCO, which
  then forwards them to some true learning
  management algorithms?
• How could such communication take place?

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Learning Objects?

• I guess that could be the answer if you want it
  to be.
• You see, with current definitions you can label
  just about anything you like as a learning
  object.
• Go ahead. Try it. Just look around you or on
  your computer screen and declare some things as
  learning objects.
• Look! This slide is a learning object!

Maybe I should wax a bit scriptural as David
Wiley did yesterday
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Acts 1723-24

• Ye men and women of instructional technology, I
  perceive that in all things ye are too
  superstitious.
• For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I
  found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
  UNKNOWN LEARNING OBJECT. This thing therefore ye
  ignorantly worship, it declare I unto you.
• -- read more in the gospel of Educational
  Technology this July/August

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Actually, I give up

• Sometimes it is easier to come up with a new term
  than try to define one that has been in
  widespread use just ask David Merrill -)
• The learning part is important and can remain,
  but just as software engineers moved from
  reusable objects in source code to reusable
  software components, so should our field.
• Hence, the term Learning Component

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What is a learning component?

• Interaction with components should be possible
  only through well-defined interfaces not
  implementation code
• Components should be encapsulated to provide
  separation from their environment and other
  components. This principle is critical to enable
  reuse.
• Components must be part of a specified component
  architecture and so will conform to a standard
  such as COM, Enterprise JavaBeans, or CORBA. If
  the component architecture rules are obeyed,
  components may take advantage of built-in
  features and services
• Components should be designed to allow for
  customization and assembly by non-programmers

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Instructional Interfaces

• This is really where such flexible assets could
  become exciting
• Imagine SCOs representing an instructional
  context into which assets can be placed.
• If the asset implements an agreed upon interface,
  the SCO serves as a sort of instructional
  template (or shell) designed to facilitate the
  learners acquisition of a particular skill or
  knowledge.

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What is an interface?

• Merriam Webster the place at which independent
  and often unrelated systems meet and act on or
  communicate with each other

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Key point of Interfaces

• Key point is that the interface and the
  implementation are separate at least in
  software. This is not entirely the case with
  many physical systems such as Legos, but there is
  still a logical separation.

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Example Instructional Interface

• An interface is not a constituent part of a
  component, but serves as a contract between a
  component and its clients. An interface
  specifies the services a client may request from
  a component the component must provide an
  implementation of these services (Weinreich and
  Sametinger, 2001).
• public interface LearningComponent
• void setName(String title)
• String getName()
• void setDescription(String desc)
• String getDescription()
• void setFunction(String func)
• String getFunction()
• List getChildren()
• Object getParent()

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What does it mean to implement an interface?

• It means that component developers can choose how
  a particular component or program delivers on the
  contract that the interface represents.
• Too technical for instructional technology? If
  so, the Open Knowledge Initiative would be on the
  wrong track.
• Besides, if you have SCOs you are already dealing
  with having components implement interfaces. In
  SCORMs case, the primary concern is a JavaScript
  interface.
• It provides a good but technical balance between
  freedom of wide-open implementation and rules
  that would be too constraining

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What could Learning Components do?

• Entity, Activity, and Process components could
  capture XML encoded data based upon a particular
  theory (David Merrills)
• Invisible components could encapsulate the
  instructional algorithms behind strategies such
  as Identify, Execute, Interpret, Classify,
  Transfer, etc.
• The components would adhere to a component
  architecture and therefore leverage all of the
  other components out there such as GUI, data
  processing, and other components.
• Components would be interoperable by implementing
  agreed upon interfaces

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Example component and context

• The only visible instructional components here
  are the context component and the SVG capable
  Entity.
• Invisible Identify strategy component with
  customizer is also there.

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Extending SCOs both directions

• The details of Assets encoded as XML could be
  known
• Assets, SCOs, and their containers could
  implement instructionally useful interfaces
• The interfaces could be serving as the sort of
  independent yet integrated systems or layers as
  per Gibbons ideas

SVG
SVG
SVG
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Summary

• Interfaces rule ignore them at your own risk
• The ability to create components that implement
  instructional interfaces will increase the more
  we learn and practice from software engineering
• The learning components described here will
  require real programming language support both
  at design time and delivery
• I dont believe SCORM gets in the way of this.
  Indeed, it still provides the baseline
  interoperability you would expect but may need to
  be extended to accommodate emerging instructional
  software interfaces.