Subject: Re: Learning Objects: adaptable?
From: Ania Lian (ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au)
Date: Sun 13 Feb 2000 - 10:19:55 MET
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 19:19:55 +1000 (EST) From: Ania Lian <ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au> Subject: Re: Learning Objects: adaptable?
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What seems to me to be the core issue, does not seem to have been answered
so far. What makes a course coherent? Where does coherence come from? And,
most of all, the relationship between the database proposed and the
teaching environment so far does not seem to be explicit. Rather, the
notion of independent learning materials seems to indicate that there is
not any.
(cf. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mlal2/lists/ifets/seminar/problems/
learning/alian08.htm)
If so, this may well be a way out for its designers. Maybe making such a
bridge would endanger the very form of learning that Clark hopes to
achieve? This may in fact help Clark in the dilemma about the appropriacy
of the descriptive categories. By divorcing itself from judgments
regarding the educational value of the materials, the database may be just
a collection of interesting lessons etc. They need not create a series of
lessons for a specific course. They could be just resources to look at and
play with.
The educational value of the materials, instead of being a descriptor, may
be a criterium for inclusion of some programs. If some materials seem to
explain so little that their educational value in terms of the audience to
which they make themselevs available is largely reduced, this may reduce
the need for these materials on the database altogether.
Just like the question regarding the source of coherence needs to be
answered so does the question regarding the conditions which make courses
nearly-identical. Without such answers, evaluation of the project may be
impossible. While I agree with Anita Pincas that people look for easy ways
out, I would also suggest that the question re solution to instructional
design needs to be solved so that we can draw on some accountibility
procedures for evaluating our own teaching and the assumptions on which we
build.
Thus while we can always do better, I think that the fundamentals of
teaching need to be already in place. Without them, no solutions, no paths
invented make sense, as Anita Pincas hereself indicates. We need to know
the question which our life's work is to attempt to resolve.
Ania Lian
ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mlal2
please, keep checking my IFETS-site:
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mlal2/lists/ifets/seminar/problems/problems.htm
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