Subject: Re: Learning asset and learning object
From: Clark Quinn (cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com)
Date: Thu 02 Mar 2000 - 00:28:42 MET
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 15:28:42 -0800 From: Clark Quinn <cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com> Subject: Re: Learning asset and learning object
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> >There's educational content, that is a picture with some annotation about
>author, time period, style. A chart with an audio overlay that explains
>it's context. Some educational text. Again, as soon as I can identify it
>and 'launch' it, it's an asset, and now a learning asset.
> >
> >It requires metadata tagging to be a fully realized object.
>
>I don't know what you mean by tagging. My understanding is:
>
>Metadata tagging is adding additional description about the resource and
>hence can support functions like the discovery of the resource (the whole
>piece), IP, condition of use and sometime additional "value-adding"
>information such as audience, curriculum standard etc.
>
>XML type of tagging (the document itself has been tagged) potentially allows
>breaking the document into sub parts and may allow re-use of sub parts).
There are two types of tagging. XML tagging can be on the 'outside'
of the object, and then it's just other tagging. You can also use
XML within the object, but that's essentially opaque to the system
(unless your system includes more than any LTSC requirements). It's
certainly likely to be opaque to any arbitrary IEEE1484-compatible
system
>"It requires metadata tagging to be a fully realized object." - this is
>neither the necessary condition, nor the "sufficient condition". I can
>design a system to use a resource without requiring the resource to be
>tagged (both metadata tagging or XML tagging). Equally, I can tag any
>object and it does not automatically make the object a fully realized
>object.
I'm talking about the standards. What you say is true, in some
sense. I'm talking about ways to make interoperable systems (which I
perceive as one of the benefits).
>Metadata tagging supports resource discovery. How rich you want to go so
>that the tagging also describes things like activation parameters, variables
>settings, typical use... ? How complicated the software will be to take
>advantage of all these "rich tagging"?
I think these are two ends of the continuum (as Crispin Weston has
also indicated); you can have simple objects with rich tagging, or
smart objects which have rich standards for information passing to
activate them to the context. I think simple objects with rich
tagging is a more vendor-neutral approach, and that's the approach I
believe the LTSC is taking. I was merely elucidating that framework
within which to make my case, not necessarily defending it.
>If your version of metadata tagging supports "some annotation about author,
>time period, style" and "audio overlay" that accompany a chart to explain
>it's context, I think your metadata tags are too rich to be useful. In fact
>such content of the tag is better separately stored as a resource. In this
>case this separated stored resource is an "learning asset". If I can find
>this learning asset, I can know ONE example of using the resource referred
>to by this learnign asset. Hence the learning asset becomes an enabling
>device for using resouces that are not originally created for education
>consumption. (This is a long phrase, can I use "NEF resource"?) But still,
>tagging (or metadata tagging) does not change nature of the NEF resource.
>There may be other education use of the same NEF resource. I think that's
>OK and is prefectly welcome!
I think we're coming up here against a definitely difficult issue:
what separates a knowledge/information object from a learning object.
The more I think about it, I think there's not a clear line of
definition. I've made the initial claim that it must have an
implicit objective (in the rich sense of learning objective, see
below) to be a learning object. I may be wrong.
> >If there's an external context provided, I'll agree. But I don't think
>that serving a string of independent knowledge objects will necessarily
>yield a learning experience. Currently. That is, a system that can create
>a learning experience on the fly out of tagged knowledge objects just
>doesn't exist yet, nor can it unless some more breakthroughs are
>accomplished in AI and cognitive science.
>
>
>People do not learn in vacuum.
I think we're agreeing furiously.
> >OK. Given the above, I'd argue that content, functionality, and 'look and
>feel' are properties of objects, period. Knowledge or learning. The need
>for a learning objective (implicit is acceptable) is what's needed to make
>it a learning object.
>
>
>Is it that simple? Just learning objective?
No, not just that simple. A learning objective implies getting a
particular audience to achieve a particular level of performance in a
particular context. It's the learning 'wrapping' around some bit of
data or information that makes it part of a learning experience. The
contextualization you're talking about above.
>"At the inaugural meeting of the DC-Education Working Group in October 1999,
>the first domain-specific Working Group to be constituted within the Dublin
>Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), five categories based on the common
>semantic elements of eleven major educational metadata projects, were
>identified.
And I still don't know why the DC group is doing this independently
of the existing IMS and IEEE LTSC work. I admit I haven't
investigated; I've merely heard that the offer was made and the
connection wasn't.
>These included::
>
>- USERS: Metadata elements that focus on the general idea of the "audience"
>for the resource being described, further distinguished as those "who
>mediate access to the resource" from those "for whose benefit from how it
>may be used".
Agreed. Hopefully there's a language that makes this tractable.
>- DURATION: Metadata elements/qualifiers that capture the typical "use" time
>of an educational/training resource.
This doesn't necessarily seem exclusive to learning objects.
>- LEARNING PROCESSES & CHARACTERISTICS: Contains a number of different
>attributes that focus on pedagogy including "student groupings, teaching
>methods, mechanisms of assessment, learning prerequisites, interactivity
>type and level, material type from a didactic viewpoint, type of use in a
>scholastic milieu, 'difficulty', 'semantic density,' etc.
This sounds similar to what I proposed, or is already included.
>- STANDARDS: Mapping to meet specific education/training content/process
>standards
Not a bad idea, though there is an existing inclusion to other
systems of alignment, which presumably includes such standards.
>- QUALITY: Relates to an assessment of the quality of the object for
>educational/training purposes. Sutton identified two sorts of such
>assessments: (1) unstructured assessments (e.g., third-party
>reviews/annotations), and (2) structured assessments based on established
>evaluative criteria.
This also doesn't seem exclusive to learning objects.
Thanks very much for your detailed interactions, -- Clark
-- Clark Quinn KnowledgePlanet.com (510) 768-2408 cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com--------------------------------------------------------- Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/ Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html ---------------------------------------------------------
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