DEALER Distance Education And Learning Repository

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DEALERDistance Education And Learning Repository
Soros Foundations Open Society Fund Bosnia and
Herzegovina MIT Center Sarajevo

• The First Draft Idea
• Zlatan Sabic
• Sarajevo, July 1998

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Basic presumption

• To support educators by interactive distance
  learning technologies
• WE should NOT think of ways how educators
  SHOULD work, but think instead how educators
  REALLY work
• What are their PROBLEMS?
• How can we help solve them?

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Modern Educators Problems

• Need for rapid updates in curricula
• Curricula more complex
• Audiences more complex
• High preparation costs
• Multiple learning sites (class, home..)
• Technology innovations continuous
• Teaching cooperation needed to manage complexity

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Need for rapid updates in curricula

• Knowledge and technology continuously changing
• Innovative education demands continuous change in
  course curricula
• Rapid updates critical

• PROBLEMS
• high costs for high quality updates
• need high quality content
• need rapid and timely access
• need digestible formats

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Curricula more complex

• Some critical technical content may be needed
  across several courses

• PROBLEMS
• core content may be difficult to parse across
  multiple contexts
• organization of core content within different
  contexts

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Audiences more complex

• Even if the content is located only in one
  course, different audiences require different
  approaches

• PROBLEMS
• small changes in lessons produce "versions"
  confusion
• lessons need to be well-organized to recognize
  small differences

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High preparation costs

• "Construction" of new courses based on existing
  and new material needs to be fast

• PROBLEMS
• too much time removing the updatable core
  lessons from needed context
• problems with course scope and sequence can
  become critical

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Multiple learning sites

• Teachers and students work on computers in
  classrooms and at home
• Distance learning creates multiple course sites

• PROBLEMS
• Different learning environments may need
• different approaches and materials

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Technology innovations continuous

• It is hard to survive as modern and successful
  educators without continuous adopting of new
  technologies

• PROBLEMS
• technology dependant teaching materials are too
  time-expensive (need for structure and technology
  conversions)
• educator has to spend some time to learn the use
  of technology

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Teaching cooperation

• The most of the topics are too complex for only
  one educator
• Cooperation synergy can be very "profitable"

• PROBLEMS
• cooperation coordination
• again context dependance of lessons
• incompatibility of formats (technology dependance)

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What to do?

• Develop smaller units with more complex
  organization
• Downsize lessons
• make content loosely coupled with context
• make content easy to access and update
• More complex organization
• use multiple criteria to classify modules
• faster searches for appropriate lesson
• design more rapid ways to update curriculum

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Downsizing lessons

• Small Can Be Beautiful !
• A lesson can be constructed using
• a Learning Module format(comparable to 15 min.-
  1 hour of instruction)
• Each lesson can contain
• commercial and/or professionally-created
  materials and/or digitized objects
• in hardcopy, on the Internet or on CD ROM

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Continuous innovation creates an instructional
dilemma

• Classification by topics (Project Scheduling
  Software)
• more appropriate in dynamic environment and for
  smaller lessons
• Topics updated often
• Classification by courses (Project Mgt)
• more appropriate in static environment and for
  larger lessons

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Example - Classic Hierarchy Classification by
Courses

• Course System Analysis and Design
• System Analysis Methodology Preliminary Analysis
• Problem Detection
• ...
• System Analysis Techniques Interview
• ...
• System Design
• Project Management
• ...
• Course Strategic Use of Information Technologies
• TPS, MIS, DSS Basic Concepts
• System Analysis (partly)
• Interview (in different context)
• Group Technologies (partly Groupware lesson)
• ...
• Course Short Seminar on MIS and Groupware
• MIS Basic Concepts (partly TPS, MIS, DSS lesson)
• Groupware (partly Group Technologies lesson)

too big
too big
too context sensitive
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Example - Classic Hierarchy Classification by
Topics

• Topic System Analysis
• System Analysis Methodology ...
• System Analysis Techniques ...
• ...
• Topic System Design
• Coding System
• Database Normalization
• ...
• Topic Project Management
• Project Definition and Planning
• Leading the Project
• ...
• Topic Group Technologies
• Group Work and Behaviour
• Groupware
• ...

• Instructional dilemma
• too big and context sensitive to be easily
  updated
• but if context is removed, instruction less
  useful
• in a dynamic environment hierarchical
  organization can become quite complicated
  (Gopher v. WWW)

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Problems with classic hierarchy classification

• They have rigid classification relationships
• Unique not multiple search criteria
• Need for multiple connections creates redundancy
• Unstable in dynamic environments such as teaching
  team curricula design
• Continuous adjustment is expensive
• Matrix or Hypertext concept more flexible

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Organizing Lessons

• Learning Modules can be classified
• Statically
• always on topic criteria
• time independent
• Dynamically
• on course criteria
• time dependant

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1. Define topic(s)Generic topics
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2. Learning modulessmall and somewhat context
insensitive
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3. Enhance context through choice and sequence
Static
Dynamic
Course 1
Course 2
Course 3
...
Classification by CoursesLINEAR-NO HIERARCHY
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Small Modules Matrix Structure

• Simple
• Flexible
• Low maintenance
• Technology independent
• Can be created dynamically, step-by-step
• Can be created and used by more than one educator

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Creating Courses

• Can be designed and updated quickly
• Complex but not too complicated for users
• Could be highly automated
• Easy to test

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Learning Modulescould have two possible
structures

• Small context free module
• Another independent matrix structure

Financial Management
Marketing Management
Practical Use of PC
Market
...
...
Basic Terms
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Build Modules Using Digitized Objects

• Learning Module can be
• text on paper
• HTML text
• MS Word document
• PowerPoint presentation
• Can contain digitized
• multi-media objects
• Picture .GIF, .JPG, .TIF...
• Excel graphs
• Audio Clip .WAV, Video Clip .RM, ...

• Courses contain LM with instruction
• LM contain digitized objects
• for use the number of adopted standards must be
  small

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System management

• Need to organize teaching groups
• Small set of materials, use "paper" database
• very simple and effective
• By computer database
• simple to construct
• large scale of possible technologies (RDBMSs,
  ODBMSs, HTMLJavaCGI, macro languages, )

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In context of Soros DL Project

• Tri-level structures create the possibility for
  immediate work on materials restructuring
• Structures are simple to communicate
• 1st level - unique materials and/or digitized
  objects and limited context
• 2nd level- lessons with instruction and some
  context
• 3rd level courses with rich context

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Matrix structure for DEALER should be the main
principle in every segment of the
projectstandards development, database
development, materials restructuring,
communication, cooperation with other
institutions (GLEN), ...
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LEMON RepositoryLearning Modules Network
Repository
Soros Foundations Open Society Fund Bosnia and
Herzegovina MIT Center Sarajevo

• END
• Zlatan Sabic
• Sarajevo, July 1998