Computer Systems
Technology
NAIT
Computer Systems Technology
NAIT
In today’s global learning environment opportunities exist to establish knowledge
depositories in every area of education.
Poised on the edge of a new era, educators seek ways of enhancing
face-to-face and online learning activities.
Being a content and delivery expert is not enough to succeed in the
demanding and competitive area of adult education. As institutions move towards distance learning initiatives for a
variety of reasons, educators need to resource content and activities that will
engage learners without stretching development budgets. Advanced learning objects developed within a
set of global standards can be the key to creating lessons, units and courses
that meet learner requirements within the constraints of reasonable development
costs.
Standards such as metadata tagging
are becoming increasingly important for e-learning. A leader in the area of
establishing standards is IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS). IMS is a
non-profit organization with over 200 commercial, government and educational
members. Its purpose is to develop and promote standards that “define an open
architecture for networking learning systems.”
In 1999, IMS announced a specification that included 19 core fields used
to describe learning resources. (Singh) IMS identified XML as the principal
tool for creating metadata tags. The US Department of Defense has incorporated
the IMS specification into the SCORM (Shareable Courseware Object Reference
Model) initiative.
The IEEE LTSC has proposed the
following broad definition of a learning object:
A learning object is
any entity, digital or non-digital, that can be used, re-used, or referenced
during technology-supported learning.
Examples of learning objects are:
printed materials, exercises, cases or study programs. A learning object can
stand on its own, and it can be re-used. In practice, learning objects are
typically not courses. They are smaller objects that can be re-used in a
variety of courses.
There are several ways of viewing
learning objects. Here’s a common view that conforms with the IEEE definition.
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Learning
Object |
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Refers to: |
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Learning objects may be referred
to by metadata. The metadata specification is described in the IEEE LOM standard
specification. The metadata and the object may be stored in databases.
The concept of a learning object
conforms to the principles of objects in theories of object-oriented
development (i.e. encapsulation, abstraction, inheritance). However, from the perspective of some
educational theorists, learning objects are incomplete. They lack an important
identifier – their usage type within the context of the learning experience in
which they are used. A research
project in the Netherlands is focusing on this issue. (Koper)
In 1998, researchers at the Open
University of the Netherlands (OUNL) began researching and developing an
Educational Modeling Language (EML), a notational system for complete units of
study to be used in e-learning. OUNL started the design of EML as a solution to
the inter-operability and re-usability problems that have contributed to the
high cost of developing educational systems.
Researchers
at OUNL describe EML as the first “comprehensive notational system that allows
one to codify units of study (courses, course components and study programs)”
(OUNL, 2002). The EML research project is independent of any vendor or other
commercial stakeholders. The major EML implementation uses XML as the
definition language.
Initiatives undertaken by IMS,
IEEE-LTSC, Dublin Core and ADL-SCORM have focused on the development of
specifications with which educational content may be codified. EML applies these content specifications and
adds specifications for roles, relations, interactions and activities of
students and teachers. By including specifications for roles and activities,
EML allows educators to model a variety of pedagogies. In addition, the uniformity that the EML structure
provides helps promote the interoperability, re-usability and compatibility of
learning materials.
Using XML as the definition
language for EML allows indefinite and perpetual interface compatibility. The
notation that is used today for western music has changed little since the 16th
century. It has been used by composers as diverse as J.S.Bach, Mozart, Brahms,
Stravinsky with little modification, yet these composers represent quite
different genres. Furthermore, the essence of the musical ‘experience’
described by the notation is preserved, even if the delivery media is
varied.
A work by J.S.Bach, for instance,
might have been originally written for the harpsichord, transcribed for piano
by Listz (1850), orchestrated for symphony orchestra by Stokowski (1940s),
popularized by the Moog synthesizer (1970s), and so on. The point is that the
musical structure has remained intact despite the arrival of novel delivery
mechanisms. Furthermore, the notation is fully integrated into musical
typesetting applications (e.g. Finale, Sibelius), which make a bridge to the
world of electronic media and electronic representation.
The key similarities between the
analogy of musical notation and an educational modeling language are that both representations
are independent of medium, enable re-use, and are capable of representing an
entire experience. Furthermore, the notations can be used for new work, new
concepts, new media; the notations do not block creativity, they enable it.
Koper
describes this as a “model, which models pedagogical models.” Pedagogical
models would be derived from the meta-model. This is important when you want to
express the semantics of relationships between pedagogical entities but want to
remain pedagogically neutral. He compares it to the neutrality of a text
editor. It has no means of validating if what you have entered is a poem or a
grocery list. He suggests a semantic
framework for text may not be feasible, yet a semantic framework for education
is possible, maybe even necessary.
There are four packages in the pedagogical meta-model:
The learning model is based on a
constructivist approach to education.
This model is used to “determine the educational philosophy, the
instructional model and the more practical design of the units of study.”
In a recent article to IMS, Rob
Koper, an EML researcher and developer at OUNL describes how EML evolved from
the analysis of pedagogical models. The pedagogical design of learning
experiences (a ‘unit of study’ in EML) is central to Koper’s research in
semantic notation.
A number of courses have already
been modeled and implemented in EML and used in actual teaching situations.
Outcomes were evaluated for learning effectiveness. The EML model developed by
OUNL has proven its effectiveness and flexibility in a variety of settings and
under a variety of pedagogical models.
Roper describes a ‘unit of study’
as the “smallest unit providing learning events for learners, satisfying one or
more interrelated learning objectives.” (Roper, 2002) A course, program,
seminar, workshop or lesson might all be considered a unit of study. A unit of
study could be presented in on-line, blended or face-to-face learning
environment. The notations of units of study are what the researchers refer to
as “Educational Modeling Language”.
A unit of study is a model for
integrating the components of a learning experience. It cannot be broken down
to its component parts without losing its meaning and effectiveness towards the
attainment of learning objectives. In
addition to roles, objectives, activities and assessments, a unit of study must
also consider the domain of learning (e.g. mathematics is not the same as
social sciences) and the context of learning (e.g. distance, traditional or
blended).
IMS members participate in a range
of workgroups, including the support of the development of new specifications
and standards to replace proprietary formats, enable the interoperability of
e-learning software, and enable the migration of learning data and content
among systems.”
“The IMS Global Consortium has approved a document defining the scope
of its Learning Design working group, with Educational Modeling Language (EML)
as the possible basis for a future IMS Learning Design specification.” (Wilson)
It is apparent that EML and
properly designed learning objects are the path to a global repository of
knowledge; knowledge that can be tapped to support the design and development
of affordable units of learning of any size, subject and scope. Online learning can be the major beneficiary
of this structured approach to encapsulation and reusability. The choice is ours.
Singh, Harvey (2000). An Intro to
MetaData Tagging [online] Available: www.learningcircuits.org/dec2000/dec2000_ttools.html
Koper,
Rob (2002). 'Modelling Units of Study from a Pedagogical Perspective: the
pedagogical meta-model behind EML [online] Available: http://eml.ou.nl/introduction/articles.htm
OUNL,(2002). EML,
What’s it All About? [online] Available:
http://eml.ou.nl/introduction/explanation.htm
Wilson, Scott (2002). IMS takes EML as starting
point for new specification [online] Available:
www.cetis.ac.uk/content/20010912134125