Transcript How to create a learning design expressed in Learning Design Colin Tattersall, The Open University of the Netherlands © 2004

How to create a learning design
expressed in Learning Design
Colin Tattersall, The Open University of the Netherlands
© 2004
Learning Design and learning design
- ‘Learning Design’ (LD)
- refers to the IMS Learning Design Specification
- 'learning design‘
- refers the human activity of designing units of learning,
learning activities, …
- ‘a learning design' or 'the learning design‘
- refers to the result of the learning design activity;
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IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.
- www.imsglobal.org
- Formed in 1997, two goals
- “Defining the technical specifications for interoperability
of applications and services in distributed learning”
- “Supporting the incorporation of the IMS specifications
into products and services worldwide”
- OUNL is contributing member (voting rights)
- Also Apple, Blackboard, Microsoft, WebCT, Cisco, Sun,
Texas Instruments, …+/- 60 members
- The IMS Learning Design specification is at
- http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/index.cfm
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What is LD ?
- A learning technology specification
- Learning Design is used to model units of
learning
- A unit of learning (UoL) is any delimited piece of education or
training, such as a course, a module, a lesson, etc.
- more than just a collection of ordered resources to learn
- activities, assessments, services and support facilities provided
by teachers, trainers and other staff members.
- Who does what, when, with whom and using
which learning objects and services?
- A model of the activities, content, tools and
workflow for learners and staff to accomplish one
or more learning objectives
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What’s a model?
- A description of a learning process (who does
what, when, etc) using the concepts in the IMS LD
language (a meta-model);
- For example, we can create a model of problem based
learning
- These models can be ‘played’ in an IMS-LDaware player;
- Analogous to marking-up learning materials in HTML
and having a browser interpret them
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The Learning Design meta-model
- Stage-play metaphor
-
People act in different roles
working towards certain objectives
by performing learning and/or support activities
within an environment, consisting of learning objects
and services used in the performance of the activities.
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What LD is not ….
-
-
Not a programming language
- … although some characteristics are shared
Not an instructional method
- … can be used to describe many methods
Not pedagogically neutral in the sense of not caring about
pedagogy
- … indeed, it requires the designer to be explicit about
his/her pedagogical choices in the learning process
Not a guarantee of good education
- … can use it to describe poor learning processes
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What does LD give you?
1. Exchange of (multi-role, multi-learner) learning processes:
My VLE
UoLs
Your VLE
2. Re-use of learning flow and/or learning content;
3. A language for describing learning processes;
4. Comparison of approaches to learning;
- “Gold standard for Problem Based Learning is as
follows …”
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Requirements met by Learning Design
-
-
R1. Completeness: … fully describe the teaching-learning
process in a unit of learning …
R2. Pedagogical Flexibility: … express pedagogical
meaning … flexible in the description of all different kinds of
pedagogies …
R3. Personalization: … describe personalization aspects …
R4. Formalization: … describe … in a formal way, so that
automatic processing is possible.
R5. Reproducibility: .. abstracted so that repeated execution
...
R6. Interoperability: … interoperability of learning designs.
R7. Compatibility: … use available standards
R8. Reusability: … identify, isolate, de-contextualize and
exchange …
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Requirements met by IMS Learning Design
-
-
R1. Completeness: … fully describe the teaching-learning
process in a unit of learning …
R2. Pedagogical Flexibility: … express pedagogical
meaning … flexible in the description of all different kinds of
pedagogies …
R3. Personalization: … describe personalization aspects …
R4. Formalization: … describe … in a formal way, so that
automatic processing is possible.
R5. Reproducibility: .. abstracted so that repeated execution
...
R6. Interoperability: … interoperability of learning designs.
R7. Compatibility: … use available standards
R8. Reusability: … identify, isolate, de-contextualize and
exchange …
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When to formalise?
-
Highly designed/planned
Create once, deliver many
Significant investment
Lengthy lifespan
Author team
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-
Single teacher/lecturer
One-off
To be revised following
delivery
The learning design with LD process
- Starting point is a narrative description of some
educational process
- “Students are presented with some information on Italian Wines.
The tutor is available to take questions …”
- “The lecturer posts a problem on the bulletin board. Each group
of learners elects a spokesperson who summarises the problem
and clarifies ….”
- “Think about your experiences as a school child, creating three
statements which should be typed into a document and stored
on the shared space. Once this is done, ….”
Roles
Activities
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The learning design with LD process
- What’s the end point?
- Say it with XML
- LD has, in common with all IMS specs, a so-called
XML binding
- If you represent your UoL in the data format indicated
by the binding, a conforming application will be able to
do the right thing
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More on the end point
- An IMS Content Package
- Used for exchange of content
- IMS Learning Design is integrated with an IMS
Content Package as another kind of organization
within the <organizations> element.
- An IMS content package is called a 'Unit of learning'
if and only if it includes a valid IMS learning-design
element in the organizations part of the package's
manifest.
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The wider context
A content package
Designers create
Units of Learning
containing IMS LD,
XHTML content,
IMS QTI, ….
Learners (and staff) use an
LD-aware software application in
(a part of) their learning process
Unit of
Learning
Design time
Run time
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The formalisation process
Tools will help, especially in avoiding raw XML,
but will not remove the need for a relatively
Formal approach to learning design (cf software
engineering world)
Start
Finish
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But how to get from start to finish?
- Helpful to have stepping stones (intermediary stages)
between informal narrative and formal XML code;
- Again lessons to be drawn from the Software Engineering
world;
- (Instructional) Systems Development
- Iterative process
- OUNL found (some of the concepts of) Unified
Modelling Language (UML) activity diagrams to be
helpful but their use is not mandated and other
approaches are equally valid
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UML Activity Diagrams
-
Revolve around activities;
Include notion of roles, serial and parallel activities,
conditionality
Not all LD concepts covered (eg where to describe how
activities are completed; conditions, property setting etc);
But help when giving an overview of a learning design
UML Activity Diagram notation could also be
extended/specialised (eg to include ways of showing
selection (and number-to-select)/sequence)
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Simple Example
- The student critiques a poem;
- The tutor grades the critique;
Student
Tutor
Critique poem
Grade critique
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UML Activity Diagram
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Practical
- In order to reinforce the idea of formalising
learning design with Learning Design, we’ll take
an example and try to see how it would look as a
UML activity diagram
- With thanks to James Dalziel (Macquarie ELearning
Centre of Excellence) and the Alfanet project
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What is Greatness
- Try to create a UML activity diagram for the
following:
- Learners individually consider “what is
greatness?”;
- They enter a few sentences of initial thoughts;
- This process is monitored by the tutor and
ended at the tutors discretion;
- All learners then view others’ thoughts and
respond to them;
- The tutor in turn responds to these reflections
and finishes the learning process.
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What is Greatness – suggested approach
- See next slide
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Summary
- Doing learning design with Learning Design
implies formalisation (ultimately to XML);
- This formalisation has its advantages;
- Tools are certainly needed (and are arriving) but
it’s not just about tools; process also needed
© 2004