I am currently working on a paper whose argument will be that the dialogue surrounding learning objects is essential to the evolution of understanding in higher education of how LO might be integrated into a university's enterprise content management system. (and if they don't have one, they'd better begin planning one!!).
Debating with the wonderful writers and thinkers who are tackling this thorny topic is one great way to exercise the brain cells. So I will here be responding to Norm Friesen’s article:
Three Objections to Learning Objects
Friesen begins by dissecting the two terms involved in the phrase “learning object.” This is a great way to start because it clearly delineates the contradictory worlds that are trying to merge as the concepts behind LOs move more deeply into the thinking and infrastructure of our universities. However, as I read, I felt that while the argument was powerful, it was also negative in a way that blocked an alternative view of the role of LO in higher education (HE).
I see the concepts of Learning Objects and object-oriented models as catalysts for precisely the kind of deeper, critical thinking that higher education needs to be involved in. And it is involved in this conversation, through Educause and EdMedia conferences and publications, through NLII’s identification of key themes such as learning objects, deeper learning, and communities of practice. The dialogue is dynamic and evolving toward articulating a different paradigm, one that will absorb and transform the ideas from the corporate world, the military realm, and the discipline of cognitive science.
Friesen is also right on target in noting the vast sums of money that are being expended on pilot projects and even national initiatives such as the Australian Learning Foundation. He notes that the term “object” emerges from a “specific technological paradigm.” In turn this term’s connotations support a behaviorist, objectivist conception of information as an external object, external to the learner.
And of course we know that the term “learning” is fraught with all kinds of vagueness. Yet the minute I began to explore LO in 2001 with colleague Susan Metros, I was fascinated by how the very concept challenged my thinking about how and what I taught. I had been a high school English teacher for years before morphing into a “web instructional technologist.” I knew the role of intuition and creativity and passion and credibility that comprised my successful teaching career. How would I then take a successful year’s course on the history of British Literature, and break it down, chunk it, organize it into smaller components that could be readily re-used during the next semester? Because I recognized the magic in great teaching and course development, I realized that my fellow teachers might resist this de-construction.
So from the very first, I have used the concepts and the dialogues to reframe the rich bed of ideas surrounding learning objects so that the innovative, non-threatening, exciting parts could be shared with university faculty.
Back to the Friesen article. SCORM compliance is a concept that would be foreign to a university professor crafting a blended learning course on the history of world civilization. The hierarchy of the traditional university is also not such that the SCORM debate would seem to offer great benefits. However, the very fact that the major CMS players are touting that they are “interoperable” and “SCORM-compliant” requires that university administrators look carefully and critically at their infrastructure and their planning strategies. We move into the future at a very rapid pace. Universities need to keep their focus on their mission as well as on remaining competitive in the new marketplace.
In his third objection, Friesen does a wonderful job of articulating the military world view and the stark contrast to the ancient university tradition with its foundation in Socratic dialogue, Aristotelian methodology, and the great medieval institutions.
He quotes Douglas Noble in The Classroom Arsenal as pointing out the three principal characteristics of the military world view:
• Technological innovation
• Command and control
• Systems thinking
Let’s look at each of those briefly with respect to the stance of universities in general. Universities are often in the forefront of the intersection of technical and pedagogical innovation. For example, the University of Tennessee has one of the largest wireless implementations in the country, based on number of access points. Developing innovative ways to transform the classroom using this ubiquitous network is a slower process, but it is happening, through a series of wireless projects which target a particular department or college and deliberately gather data to refine the process of transforming teaching and learning.
“Command and control” are, rightly, largely foreign to universities in spite of their often top-heavy bureaucracies. Systems thinking, on the other hand, has immense value to offer universities. Since Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, first appeared in 1990, the concept of the university as a learning organization has intrigued me and with Susan Metros, I have presented on this topic at several conferences.
Before moving on let me share one of the best quotes from Norm’s article, and he is quoting military personnel, “Humans, by their very nature are multi-mission capable.”
He concludes briefly by stating that “Developers and designers will have to recognize and choose relevant (and probably differing) pedagogical positions, or risk pedagogical irrelevance.”
I believe that the exploration of pedagogical positions, the examination of the role metadata can play in adding this dimension to the learning object model is being undertaken at the present moment by innovative thinkers in both higher education and the corporate world.
Two examples will briefly indicate the paths that are being explored.
Dr. Patricia McGee, assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and an NLII Fellow in 2003, crafted a detailed survey
Survey
Because of the complexity of the topic, the survey is necessarily lengthy. Areas explored include:
• Access
• Dissemination and Management
• Assessment
• Learning Design
Among the critical questions she is asking institutions are the following:
Which of the following best describes your institutions definition of learning objects?
Do you follow a systematic design process?
From a series of questions on Learning Design
Which of the following are used in the design or implementation of learning objects (check all that apply):
• Activity Theory
• Adult Learning Theory
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Cognitive Theory
• Cone of Experience
• Gagné’s Events of Instruction
• Gagné's Conditions of Learning
• Generative Learning
• Keller’s ARCS - Motivation Theory
• Mager's Criterion Referenced Instruction
• Merrill's Component Display Theory
• Reigeluth’s Elaboration Theory
• Schema Theory
• Social Learning Theory
• None
The fact that the survey is this comprehensive is indicative of the movement forward by learning theoreticians and practitioners (Patricia is both) in HE.
The second example is from the corporate world. Dr. Heather Katz, Sr. Instructional Technologist for Intelligent Decision Systems, Inc., presented a paper at EdMedia 2004 in Lugano, Switzerland, which directly addressed the gaps in current thinking about reusable learning object models (RLOM).
She explicitly states that we need a new RLOM model which is “SCORM 2004 compliant and grounded in learning sciences, instructional systems design (ISD), and respective theories in order to produce meaningful learning events.”
Higher education needs to make a conceptual shift. They need to understand the value of an object-oriented strategy. They need to perceive the value in managing learning object content, to put a cost on the effort needed to create those technical and pedagogical efficiencies. HE can learn from the corporate world, from the object-oriented programming model, and from the discipline of cognitive science. We are the pedagogy specialists, the thinkers and practitioners. The path is exciting and the dialogue stimulating.
More to follow….
