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September 18, 2005
"Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name . . ."
Susan Metros' Educause Article is ("Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name . . .").
Susan: "Over the last three years, the buzz in educational technology circles has shifted from "What are learning objects?" to 'Whatever happened to learning objects?' ... So, why has the groundswell of interest dwindled? Why are the same scholars who were singing the praises of learning objects now predicting their demise? ... The label learning object may have run its course, but the slow shift to modularized and sharable educational content perseveres. "
Donna: I agree with her last line, faculty have moved from "What is a learning object and how can I find them? to How do I create them? Lisa Young and I have now conducted an online RLO101 Learnshop, 2 SoftChalk workshops and one Mediator 8 Learnshop and have had over 60 learning objects placed in the Maricopa Learning Exchange.
David Davies: Ed Tech "...it's not that I don't think reusable learning objects have a lot to teach us about how e-learning might work. I do. Much of my effort over the last few years has been in some way related to RLOs. It's just that I have a dawning realization that what educational technologists think of when they talk about learning objects is not the same as what lecturers and teachers think. And I don't just mean the old debate about whether a picture is an RLO or whether a course is. I mean something much deeper, about the way people interact with RLOs, what they're for and how they work for us. What works in the real world of teaching and learning, and what doesn't."
Donna: I think that more and more faculty and finding and utilizing RLO repositories such as Maricopa MLX, MERLOT, and Wisc-Online. I agree with David Davies when he says "...what educational technologists think of when they talk about learning objects is not the same as what lecturers and teachers think." To answer Susan, I think that we have to have a strategic plan for helping faculty learn what RLOs are, how to find them, how to incorporate them into their curriculum and then give them the hands on skills to do that. This has been Lisa's and mine vision, plan and program for the Maricopa faculty for the last 2 years.
Anyone?
Posted by drebadow at September 18, 2005 11:12 AM in category
