More about Learning Objects and Software Components

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Subject: More about Learning Objects and Software Components
From: Ken Kahn (kenkahn@toontalk.com)
Date: Sun 20 Feb 2000 - 01:00:09 MET 

From: "Ken Kahn" <kenkahn@toontalk.com>
Subject: More about Learning Objects and Software Components
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 16:00:09 -0800

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Albert Ip wrote:

>Software component is also promoted for its scalability (or more accurately
>Object Oriented Programming). As software becomes more complex, it is
>important to encapsulate functionalities in manageable units (components).
>Human mind just cannot handle information larger than a certain size.

I am all for modularity, scalability, and object-oriented programming. But
Learning Objects and Software Components are more than just objects - they
are promoted as units of commerce and independent development. They are
typically created independently of the team that composes them. When, say,
Microsoft builds large applications they build and use lots of internal
components (based on COM or whatever) but the whole thing has an
architecture or overall design and component builders build their components
to fit that architecture. The analogous issue with Learning Objects is
whether the creators of the components are working from a detailed spec that
is part of a grand plan or are building generic pieces hoping someone will
buy them and compile them together with other learning objects.

As Jim Schuyler wrote:

>Concomitantly, it's important for any "authoring" organization which is
>going to adopt an object orientation to carefully consider what standards
>to use, and to adopt and "enforce" those standards so that objects can
>be reused. Object re-use will take place *within* their organizations,
>not *without*. "

Best,

-ken kahn (www.toontalk.com)

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