Learning Activity Design in Practice
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This document provides an overview of the IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD) specification including: - A brief history of IMS-LD and how it builds upon earlier e-learning standards like OUNL-EML - An explanation of what IMS-LD is - a formal notation for describing learning designs in terms of roles, activities, and resources - Examples of how IMS-LD can be used to represent learning designs using metaphors like plays, acts, roles, and environments
Learning Activity Design in Practice
- 1. Winterschool, Innsbruck 2009 Dai Griffiths Institute for Educational Cybernetics, University of Bolton
- 2. Schedule for this session Presentation and discussion of what (IMS) Learning Design is (60 mins) Break Practical session working with TENCompetence Learning Design toolkit (180 mins) Discussion (60 mins)
- 3. Start downloading now http://www.tencompetence.org/ldauthor/ http://www.tencompetence.org/ldruntime/
- 4. Some ancient history In 1992 the last release was made of Apple's HyperCard authoring system (v2.2)
- 5. Using HyperCard (and similar “Multimedia authoring” tools) you could build sophisticated simulations, like this simulation of the water cycle.
- 6. Cyan's Osmo puffs his pipe and turns the pages of his book randomly. If you poke him, he responds. Write your own books, burn them in the fireplace. Record the instruments on a virtual tape deck.
- 7. Also in 1992 Berners-Lee published classic paper describing the World-Wide Web initiative (Berners-Lee, Cailliau, Groff, & Pollermann, 1992).
- 8. Why did the Web transform the world? I see this in terms of four factors Functionality was minimal Authoring was hard But communication and interoperability were compelling features We can see the years since then as a series of adjustments in the balance between these three factors
- 9. Characterising some systems Features Ease of authoring Connectivity Interoperability
- 10. Try to characterise a few systems on ten point scales Wikipedia WordPress, Mash-ups Moodle / Fronter / .LRN / Elgg ... WebCT / Blackboard / First Class ... Igoogle / Netvibes / LifeRay / ... Flash SCORM based systems & repositories ...any other that you have used
- 11. OUNL EML / LD: A new way of thinking about functionality A formal notation for learning activities Create runnable models of learning activities Implied hypothesis: Regardless of the pedagogy involved, in practice every learning design comes down to: a Method prescribing various Activities for learner and staff Roles in a certain order. IMS-LD can describe these aspects in sufficient detail to provide an effective representation of any learning design (adapted from IMS-LD specification)
- 12. The intervention made by IMS-LD IMS-LD builds on OUNL-EML It ties that functionality to interoperability, by being published as an IMS Specification It is an attempt to Increase interoperability Increase functionality Maintain connectivity (it is on the Web) What happens to authoring?
- 13. The sphere of IMS-LD IMS-LD sees pedagogy as the being the organisation and flow of pedagogic activities It does not model the detail (e.g. how to speak to learners, what clothes to wear...) It does not model or specify the cognitive or affective states of the actors (although the results of the organisational will impact on these) It does not talk directly about perspectives on learning (constructivism, inquiry based...)
- 14. IMS-LD creates general plans Sometimes we plan for individuals “ Karen needs to practice that…” “ This group will be able to go fast…” Sometimes we plan a general structure “ It’s important to teach atomic structure before I teach valence” “ If they’re going to understand this, they’ll need to get into groups to discuss it” ReCourse creates general, reusable plans, which are instantiated for particular cohorts
- 15. Some metaphors in IMS-LD which may help (or not) Play: A complete piece of learning that defines the flow of learning activities. A UOL can have more than one UOL Act: A play has one or more acts. A coordination point where all activities are completed A lesson within a course, or a session or phase within a lesson.
- 16. another metaphor... Role: As in a drama, a person may take on different roles in a single play. A learner may be a participant in a discussion at one point, and a facilitator at another
- 17. and another. Environment: The context for a learning activity You can think of an environment as resource pack containing documents and links to services which you make available to learners to help them carry out one or more learning activities.
- 18. For example Play: Course: “Introduction to Renaissance painting” Act 1 : Unit 1: “Learning from Vasari’s Lives of the Artists Act 2 : Unit 2: “The significance of Giotto” Roles: Lecturer, learner, discussion facilitator Environment: Online text of Vasari, links to pictures, forum
- 19. Levels of the specification IMS LD has three levels Level A: Defines the flow of learning activities. What we are doing today Level B: Properties and conditions, generic XHTML authoring Level C: Notification
- 20. Now write down A scenario Roles Activities Services Resources Phases (with distinctions between the activities, resources and services for the roles)
- 21. Working with the LD toolkit...
- 22. Did ReCourse represent what you planned? Is IMS-LD needed in 2009? As a notation for learning activities As a an interoperability spec for learning activities As an infrastructure for running learning activities What aspect of IMS-LD is most useful to the world? Could you imagine using it yourself? How / why not? IMS-LD is a meta-model of education, so do the results tell us anything about the relationship between our four aspects? Have we / can we improve their joint performance? Do we need more specifications (or less) to achieve a better balance of the four aspects