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TECHNOLOGY EXCHANGE

Learning Objects

An interesting website and one that may be of value to many of our members who want to know more about learning objects is found at: www.reusability.org/. An excerpt appears below:

Many people are interested in reusability and learning objects because they offer a solution to the teacher bandwidth problem. "Teacher bandwidth" is a term describing the number of students a teacher can service (think about the amount of data that can travel across a phone line). In this sense teachers can be seen as bottlenecks that limit the number of students who can gain access to educational opportunity. Or the number of potential customers who can be paying for your instruction at any given time.

Pick your own paradigm.  There are currently three main lines of research relating to learning objects and the teacher bandwidth problem. They are presented below in order of their current popularity...

1. automation  Intelligent tutor system-style interests look to overcome the teacher bandwidth problem by replacing the teacher with an intelligent computer program that automatically selects and sequences learning objects for students. You can find research that supports this type of work in the Instructional Use of Learning Objects or Learning Object Design and Sequencing Theory. Most commercial work in learning objects, as well as the work of specifications bodies like ADL/SCORM and the IMS, is focusing in this area. [If you go to the website, each of the blue titles represents an active link.]
2. by-hand  About two years ago we started a project to legitimize the efforts of human beings who put learning objects together. Computers aren't the only ones who can assemble and reuse existing resources in the service of teaching and learning: teachers can do it, too! Our Instructional Architect project provides tools for teachers to find and use learning objects in their instruction. We talk about some of the issues facing human learning object assemblers in terms of metadata and granularity. There is also a general purpose defense of by-hand assembly.
3. by-community  John Seely Brown and others continue to point to the value of the informal learning that takes place in social groups without a formal teacher. The Internet provides hitherto unknown access to large, diverse social groups. Unsurprisingly, these groups collaborate to reuse existing resources in extremely interesting ways. The "by-community" research area is a strange nexus of self-organization, activity theory, and economics. Our current understanding of Online Self-Organizing Social Systems is limited, but we're just beginning some interesting research with more help from the National Science Foundation. A book that may be of interest to you is, The Instructional Use of Learning Objects by editor, David Wiley.  You can read the full text of the online version of the book for free at: www.reusability.org/read/ The book is divided into five major sections.  
4. Learning Objects Explained
5. Learning Objects and Constructivist Thought
6. Learning Objects and People
7. Learning Objects Implementation War Stories
8. Learning Objects and the Future

The book can also be purchased. If you are interested in a slow-paced interview with the editor, David Wiley, and Andy Walker, both billed as learning object authors and experts, go to www.coolgenius.com/ and click on the lower, left-hand box titled, "Featured Genius."

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