Subject: Response: Summary 1 (12 - 18th Feb)
From: David Wiles (rprtcard@aug.com)
Date: Mon 21 Feb 2000 - 23:45:28 MET
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 17:45:28 -0500 From: David Wiles <rprtcard@aug.com> Subject: Response: Summary 1 (12 - 18th Feb)
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ifets community-
This sequence makes a lot of sense to me. Samantha's summary creates an
excellent hypotheses generating springboard for looking at the spring term.
Ip, taking input
from Lian and Schuyler, suggests that an LO has at least 4 subcomponents:
content, functions, learning objectives and 'look and feel'. **
>Cohesion is seen as two different things, the similarity between LOs in
>terms of fonts, graphics etc (type 1)
....and the information and guidance which
>'glues' **the LOs together to form a 'course' (type 2).
Quinn, who believes that the system itself can produce the
>cohesion suggests that the coherence may be composed of....
(amongst other
>things)
the look and feel of LOs, their thematic relationship and their
>relevance to a particular task.
Ip suggests a cyclical
>approach oscillating between the materials and the pedagogy in response to
>these concerns.
? dynamic spiraling is form of cyclical but so is the rigid determinism of
the perfect circle. also oscillating as a slow revolving of reoccuring themes?
>Quinn suggests two approaches to combining LOs, 'adaptation' in which the
>system leads and 'adaptability' where students set their own parameters.
>Where the system leads (as both benefitting), either the LOs are 'simple
but richly tagged' ...
or the objects are very smart
the flow of information very complex.
Samantha Hobbs <S.J.E.Hobbs@open.ac.uk> Hypothesis for Spring Semester:
making the
>former more likely to be realised
Ho: as smart and complex, it would seem to vary situation by situation if
only "simple but richly tagged."
continual and perpetual confusion over "smart within complex."
Becasue: a gifted student with a pentium 3 is a self sustaining object
within any educational system....but it only represents one context and a
rarified one at that.
of course, the 'course" first and foremost for postsecondary institutions
worldwide, and if generally true across the specrtum of socio-economic
contexts, but operational for only the 'simple but richly tagged" in
February 2000, what does all this say about student only led situations
everywhere between now and summer break?
David Wiles
**especially those with much "gluey" application and those that have the
'look and feel' of coherence during after school hours?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bonus:
and the relevance of current
>IP law to complex LOs.
what is the classification of the student who sends you a yahoo.com
greeting? does it matter if her or she is in a formal course or not when it
is sent? the student "adaptation' is not the learned skill as much as the
impact upon the receiver as a level of "smart" in exercising electronic
access.
>Approved-By: KINSHUK@IEEE.ORG
>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0)
>Approved-By: S.J.E.Hobbs@OPEN.AC.UK
>Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 19:57:24 -0000
>Reply-To: IFETS Discussion List <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>Sender: IFETS Discussion List <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>From: Samantha Hobbs <S.J.E.Hobbs@open.ac.uk>
>Subject: Summary 1 (12 - 18th Feb)
>To: Multiple recipients of list IFETS-DISCUSS
><IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>
>List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
>Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>My apologies for the lateness of this first summary, holiday and technical
>problems I'm afraid.
>
>I have summarised my understanding of the discussion up to 18/2 into 3 or 4
>main themes or issues. This is, of course, my personal understanding and I
>welcome corrections, comments and explanations, all of which will be
>integrated into the final summary.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. There has been some considerable discussion about the DEFINITION and SIZE
>of an LO.
>
>Kahn and Lowney draw comparisons between software components and LOs with
>Kahn suggesting that LOs may experience the same lack of success as
>independent software components such as word processing packages and spell
>checkers. Quinn extends this analogy but puts forward the view that items in
>a library for GUI widgets is nearer the size he would envisage.
>
>Both Rowley and Gilbert reject the applicability of re-use to
>'commercial-grade' courses since the expected standards of 'harmonisation
>and customisation of courses would not be feasible. Gilbert goes on to
>suggests that since anything that is designed for educational use is
>designed for specific learner groups and learning aims in mind successful
>use for learning outside that scenario will be purely accidental.
>
>Both these contributors appear to see an LO as a whole course or at least a
>large, complex and coherent part of a course. This view is not shared by
>others who feel that for success, courses need to be decomposed into smaller
>object which would be the LOs. These would then be combined, perhaps in
>hierarchies (Thompson and Downes) where at the higher level student is
>integrating lower level LOs.
>
>Other suggestions as to what might be considered LOs include
>'non-educational' or knowledge objects (Ip) and bulletin boards and
>collaborative activities (Quinn rejected by Dalgarno). There is some
>disagreement as to whether LOs can be tools or must be contentful and
>Dalgarno only accepts the relevance of LOs to subjects where there is
>'individual learning of concepts' such as the sciences. Ip, taking input
>from Lian and Schuyler, suggests that an LO has at least 4 subcomponents:
>content, functions, learning objectives and 'look and feel'. This is
>rejected by Downes who draws a distinction between 'components' which are
>self-contained entities (such as LOs) and 'variables' which are values and
>properties, such as colour or font size, which cannot exist on their own.
>
>The issue of the need to design LOs specifically for re-use was also raised
>(Kahn, Lowney and Schuyler)
>
>2. A second area of controversy is the COHERENT linking of LOs:
>
>Concerns were raised about the resulting coherence of courses produced by
>juxtaposing LOs (Lowe, Lian, Rowley and Gilbert). This resulted in some
>interesting discussion with many contributors as to what constitutes
>'cohesion', who or what should be responsible for providing it, and how
>important it is.
>
>Cohesion is seen as two different things, the similarity between LOs in
>terms of fonts, graphics etc (type 1) and the information and guidance which
>'glues' the LOs together to form a 'course' (type 2).
>
>Lian sees the development of coherence between LOs in a 'course' as being a
>'core issue' and raises the question of what creates coherence as a research
>issue. Others propose that the educator is responsible for providing the
>necessary cohesion (type 2) between LOs when they combine them to form a
>'course' (Plot and Parson) Thompson gives and example of such a course
>evolving. Quinn, who believes that the system itself can produce the
>cohesion suggests that the coherence may be composed of (amongst other
>things) the look and feel of LOs, their thematic relationship and their
>relevance to a particular task.
>
>Others see the degree of cohesion between LOs as being of less urgency (type
>1). Parson equates a student integrating different kinds of LOs with a
>similar experience with different object types in a museum, Schuyler suggest
>that learners already integrate very different resources on the internet and
>Lowney points out that although we currently may have coherence throughout a
>course, this rarely extends between courses, the content of which students
>are still expected to integrate.
>
>3. A third issue is the role of INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN or PEDAGOGY and
>ADAPTATION in this process.
>
>Pincas raised the issue of starting point suggesting that many developers
>begin with the LOs and only look at the instructional design later
>preferring herself to work the other way round. Ip suggests a cyclical
>approach oscillating between the materials and the pedagogy in response to
>these concerns.
>
>Martinez sees the migration towards a new instructional design appropriate
>to the use of LOs as a opportunity at which we might integrate and
>capitalise on the growing awareness of the influence of affect and emotion
>on learning. Others also suggest that rich metadata and small LOs should
>permit adaptability of content to user although more research as to the user
>characteristics to which it should adapt will be necessary.
>
>Quinn suggests two approaches to combining LOs, 'adaptation' in which the
>system leads and 'adaptability' where students set their own parameters.
>Where the system leads, either the LOs are 'simple but richly tagged' or the
>objects are very smart and the flow of information very complex making the
>former more likely to be realised
>
>4. Other issues raised include the difficulty of defining levels of
>difficulty and levels of interactivity of LOs and the relevance of current
>IP law to complex LOs.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>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
>---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
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
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Tue 22 Feb 2000 - 00:18:13 MET