Subject: Learning Objects
From: Ken Kahn (kenkahn@toontalk.com)
Date: Sun 13 Feb 2000 - 22:24:38 MET
From: "Ken Kahn" <kenkahn@toontalk.com> Subject: Learning Objects Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 13:24:38 -0800
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Clark wrote "For example, a learning object that discusses how autos behave
differently with and without anti-lock brakes might be used in several
different educational domains: the physics of friction, automotive design,
or insurance liability." Yes, but it must be very difficult to construct a
single learning object that would be appropriate for such different
contexts. When I try to think about this whole issue, I see things very
differently if the learning objects are passive (text or hypertext) or are
real software components. If they are passive then an instructor can edit
together different pieces - though it would still be a big job to adapt some
text to any of these educational domains. If they are active then a
sufficiently sophisticated object could adapt to different circumstances
including educational domains, background of students, preferred learning
styles and pedagogy, etc. But then it is very hard to make such learning
objects. What this discussion and Clark's paper lacks is a fleshed out
example - like anti-lock brakes.
One worry I have is that software components in general have been widely
promoted for all the reasons that Clark mentions (re-use, selection of "best
of breed", etc.) and yet have had rather limited success. Instead of seeing
a word processor as a collection of components for text entry, spell
checking, formating, printing, etc the marketplace has gone in the opposite
direction and most people buy office suites in which a word processor is
tightly integrated with other programs (spreadsheets, presentation software,
databases, etc.). Why are educational components different from the general
case?
My guess is that general software components have had only limitted success
is that most uses are pretty standard. No one wants a word processor without
a spell checker. So Microsoft and others make a very small number of
standard assemblages of pieces and sell only the assemblages. And there are
many advantages to the user to having tightly integrated collections of
tools. Why is education so different? Is there a great need to compose
custom courses? Isn't the demand higher for tightly integrated materials
than a loose collection of pieces? And if the marketplace for learning
objects ends up only a place for large granularity (course size) learning
objects, then what is the new idea here?
Best,
-ken kahn (www.toontalk.com)
P.S. I'd love to see fine-grained learning objects succeed but I suspect
it'll have to wait for very sophisticated software to adopt and integrate
components.
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