Learning objects: the building blocks for scaling up

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Learning objects the building blocks for scaling
up?
Tom Boyle London Metropolitan University
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Four major challenges in scaling up

• Conceptual/analytic what are learning objects,
  and how do they fit into the bigger conceptual
  framework?
• Design and development - of pedagogically
  effective learning objects optimised for reuse
• Technical standards how do we package and
  describe learning objects to achieve
  interoperability
• Community of use how do we build and sustain
  communities that use these learning objects?

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The technical standards approach

• Very brief resume
• The basis for scaling up is technical standards
• The strong position this is the central
  requirement everything else is secondary
• The weak position this is necessary but not
  sufficient

4
Standardization background

• International work on learning objects standards
• Two main standards/specifications
• Metadata
• Learning object packaging
• IEEE LOM (Learning Object Metadata) standard
  June 2002
• IMS content packaging specification

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Packaging and metadata
Manifest
IMS Package file
Metadata Organizations Resources
Manifest
Physical files/content
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Interoperability is not enough

• Lego bricks that are not Lego bricks what are
  our basic learning object units?
• The GIGO problem garbage in (scaled-up) garbage
  out
• How do we design good learning objects?
• The community of (re)use problem where is it,
  and how do we build it?

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What are learning objects?

• You close the gate and lean on the top bar
• As if something had been achieved in the
  world
• Canticle - John F. Deane

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Conceptions of learning objects

• Learning objects symposium, Hawaii June 2003
• A learning object is -
• "any entity that may be used for learning,
  education or training"
• basic chunk of content
• optimised for recombination into higher order
  structures
• where pedagogical process is added.
• 'Micro-context for learning
• explicitly designed for flexible (re) combination
  into higher order pedagogical structures.

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Criticisms of the content chunk approach

• Wiley (2003)
• based on 1980s ideas about instructional design
• Oriented to (military) training rather than
  education
• didactic transmission of knowledge
• info-capsules that transfer inert knowledge
• Clash with modern constructivist ideas
• support learners construction of knowledge
• Can learning objects embody rich pedagogy?

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Working definition

• A learning object is the minimum, meaningful
  pedagogical unit required to achieve a learning
  goal or objective
• Note this says nothing directly about the size
  of the learning object

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Design of learning objects

• Design for immediate pedagogical impact
• it should be effective with this group of
  students in this class
• Design for strategic impact
• re-use
• critical mass
• solve the chronic problem

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Two major dimensions

• Pedagogical effectiveness
• achieve a clear learning goal or objective
• Structural design for reuse
• cohesion
• decoupling

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Structural principles

• Cohesion
• each unit should do one thing and one thing only
• one clear learning goal or objective
• minimum pedagogically meaningful unit
• Decoupling
• the unit should have minimal bindings to other
  units
• there should be no necessary navigational
  bindings to other units (embedded hyperlinks)
• learning object content should not refer to the
  content in another source so as to cause
  necessary dependencies

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Design of the EASA learning objects
Winner of European Academic Software Award 2004
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Engage students with familiar every day examples
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Active student learning
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Graphic examples
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Interact with samples of code
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Scaffold student learning
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Community of use

• Failure to reuse learning objects (Koppi et al.
  2004)
• The standardization approach has failed to
  adequately deal with this
• Interoperability is not enough
• User unfriendly metadata (Currier et al. 2004)
• Major challenge
• Without successfully tackling this challenge the
  promise of reusability will remain an unfulfilled
  dream

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CETL-RLO community scale up

• Communities of use
• Institution
• Partnership
• - London Metropolitan University
• - University of Cambridge
• - University of Nottingham
• National and international
• With supporting infrastructure and tools

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Summary

• To achieve effective scaling up we need
• A clearer conceptual model of the basic building
  blocks
• Quality design not GIGO
• Technical standards for interoperability
• Build dynamic communities of (re)use

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Selected references

• CETL-RLO Web site http//www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk
• Boyle, T., (2003), Design principles for
  authoring dynamic, reusable learning objects.
  Australian Journal of Educational Technology,
  19(1), 46-58 http//www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet1
  9/boyle.html
• 3. EASA RLOs www.londonmet.ac.uk/ltri/learningobj
  ects/list.htm