overview of learning objects / OER

1. learning objects
(LO)

2. outline
• why? • details
• brief history • standards
• LO or OER • LOs today
• what are LOs? • semantic web
• barriers to LOs • future of LOs
• beyond definition • PLE

3. why learning objects?
• "Learning objects make it
unnecessary to have thousands of
iterations of the same teaching
point.“ McGreal (2004)
• "I loved the learning objects idea
because the “write once, use
anywhere” idea had a lot of
economic appeal“ Wiley (2006)
iTunes – Introduction to Open Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

4. brief history
• 1960s – hypertext / xanadu / id – ted nelson
• 1980s (+) – GNU, open source – richard stallman
• 1990s – LEGO, OOP & LO – wayne hodgins
• 2000s – atom, LO to OER – david wiley
• 2002-2007 – transition – LO to OER
• 2001 – creative commons
• 2002 – UNESCO & MIT
• 2007 (+) – open education movement
• 2010 (+) – semantic web
Wiley (2006). A Learning Objects Literature Review (Draft)
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/277

6. RIP learning objects
• "The whole learning objects field of
work turned into a giant software
engineering exercise“
• “learning objects’ inability to live up to
the incredible hype and investment
they received to the fact that the
premise of the possibility of simple
reuse was simply wrong."
Wiley (2006). Blog. RIP-ping on Learning Objects
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/230

7. learning objects = OER
openness = sharing

8. what are learning objects?
evolving definition:
• “any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be
used, re-used or referenced during technology
supported learning...“ IEEE (2002)
• "knowledge object" Merrill (1998)
• "instructional object.” Gibbons, Nelson, and Richards (2002)
• "sharable content objects“ SCOrm ADL
• “any digital resource that can be re-used to
achieve a specific learning outcome” Ally (2004)
iTunes – Introduction to Open Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

9. LOs at Athabasca

10. what are the barriers to using LO
• definitional – what is a LO?
• work involved and skill deficits - technical
• structure of repositories
• lack of learning objects in some disciplines
• quality of learning objects in repositories
• granularity
• copyright and intellectual property
• attitudinal barriers - sharing and openness
Factors Affecting the Development and Use of Learning Objects
Moisey, Ally & Spencer (2006)

11. what are learning objects?
• "any digital resource that can be
reused to facilitate learning" Wiley (2000)
• "any digital resource that can be
reused to mediate learning" Wiley &
Edwards (2003)
• "any digital resource that can be freely
adapted and be reused to mediate
learning" Wiley (2007)
iTunes – Introduction to Open Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

12. guidelines instead of definitions
4 R’s
• Reuse – copy verbatim
• Redistribute – share with others
• Revise – derivatives (adapt and
improve)
• Remix - Combinations
iTunes – Introduction to Openness in Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

13. ALMS analysis
• Access to Editing Tools
• Level of Expertise
• Meaningful Editable
• Self-Sourced
iTunes – Introduction to Openness in Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

14. open licensing
“some rights reserved”
“some permissions granted”
iTunes – Introduction to Open Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967
images: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

15. details
reusability
granularity
paradox
•Big OERs – teach well/hard to reuse
•Small OERs – Don’t teach well / easy to reuse
•Ideal – big OER + revise + remix
iTunes – Introduction to Openness in Education
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-open-education/id301635967

16. standards
• interoperability
• IEEE
• SCORM – ADL (DoD) – “play well”
• IMS global - CanCore, dublin core
metadata
• LOM – learning object metadata

17. where are LOs today?
COL - The Re-use and Adaptation of Open Educational Resources (OER) - 2012

18. where are LOs today?
• Kahn
• CK-12
• connexions - rice
• MOOCs
– Canadian (distributed, connectivism)
– Coursera (POC-packaged online content)
– Udacity
– edX – mit, harvard, berkeley

19. web 3.0 – semantic web
• metadata to data
• Tin Can – next gen of SCORM
– noun, verb, object – “I did this”
– “I passed the test” “I read the book”
– Learning outside LMS, mobile
– LMS vs LRS (learning record store)
• learning analytics
• sentiment analysis
• natural language data
http://tincanapi.com/

20. LO example-semantic web
Clustering by Usage: Higher Order Co-
occurrences of Learning Objects
– “you shall know a word by the
company it meets” – firth
– “Our approach does not rely on the
relations between users and objects
but on the relations between the
objects themselves”
Niemann et. al (2012)

21. Recommendation of Learning Objects in an
Ubiquitous Learning Environment through an
Agent-Based Approach
• ubiquitous learning – context, mobile
• agents – student, recommender, interface
Da Silva et. al (2012)

22. LO example-semantic web
Learning by creating and exchanging
objects: The SCY experience
• ELO – emerging learning object
– user-generated
– shareable and reusable
– versioning (process)
– forking (collab., reuse)
• pedagogical agents
– continuous analysis – ELO, chat, actions
De Jong et. al (2010)

23. future of LOs
personal learning environment (PLE)
“one node in a web of content, connected to other nodes and
content creation services used by other students. It becomes, not
an institutional or corporate application, but a personal learning
center, where content is reused and remixed according to the
student's own needs and interests. It becomes, indeed, not a
single application, but a collection of interoperating applications—
an environment rather than a system“ (downes)
• learning pathways
• learner interests
• remix
• agent software
• user-generated content
Wikipedia (2012)

24. PLE – 2.0
D’Arcy Norman http://darcynorman.net/2008/03/05/on-the-ple/

25. PLE – 3.0 ?
McNamara (2012)

26. can we create and/or order
an interoperating environment?
Wikipedia (2012)