Reading 9 (Theme 4)

Reading Log 9 (theme 4)
Second reading on Theme 4: Development and Design of courses

Metros, S. (2005). Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name. Educause Review (40) (4) pp.12 – 13. Downloaded on 1 July 2008 from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/LearningObjectsARosebyAny/40559

The term “Learning Objects” has not been a common one in my personal readings and studies up to now. Prompted by course readings, I searched for something more and this short article was the first one I found. It addresses reasons for the diminishing use of the term and offers a more specific definition.

Reasons for failure of learning objects to transform education:
• Broad, ambiguous definition
• Unfamiliarity of sharing and reusing material
• Time and cost of developing high quality material
• Lack of indexing standards for easy retrieval
• Low knowledge management investment
• Little documented proof of advantages

Author’s amended definition:
Any digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning and which includes/links to (1) a learning objective (2) a practice activity and (3) an assessment.

In addressing the other bulleted points above, noteworthy comments include:
• Problems with ownership and copywrite
• Poorly designed learning objects may harm learning
• Little formal, published research on the successful use of learning objects

Most recent trends
• Despite decreased use of the term “learning objects” a move towards sharable educational content continues
• They are part of learner-centred, nonlinear, customisable, media-rich educational content
• Contribution-oriented pedagogy (student-instructor codevelopments) enhances quality
• Constantly becoming easier to upload, share, store

DISCUSSION and QUESTIONS:
For me, the value of the article lay in the clarification of the definition. While one of the benefits of learning objects is reusability, I find 2 problems relsted to this:
1. To what extent might designing a learning object in such a way that it can be re-used be a limiting factor in terms of its relevance within specific contexts and thus render it less effective ?
2. One of the benefits of re-usability is the cost factor. Would the need to ensure contextual relevance and the need to deal with specific learner needs (bearing in mind the need to be learner-centred) not mean time and costs in adapting material? By the same token, is there not a danger that the availability of learning objects could drive design rather than the other way round and thus reduce quality?
3 Postscript: According to the above definition, mashups would not be included as learning objects as , from my current understanding, they would/could involve larger amounts of data being incorporated. Nevertheless of interest here is that according to the Horizon Report 2008, a research project at the University of Oregon has created a tool that allows users to collect data about objects in the virtual world of Second Life and export it to a website. The tool is designed to be used to catalogue educational objects that can be found in the virtual world.
(The report may be found at http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf )