Learning Objects and the On-line Composition Course Or:

Learning Objects and Learning Objects and the On-line the On-line

Composition CourseComposition Course

Learning Objects and Learning Objects and the On-line the On-line

Composition CourseComposition CourseOr:Or:

Learning Objects: A Learning Objects: A Force for Good or Force for Good or

Evil?Evil?

Learning Objects: A Learning Objects: A Force for Good or Force for Good or

Evil?Evil?

One Teacher’s QuestOne Teacher’s Quest

Warm-up• If you have or do teach on-line,

what are some of the challenges you’ve faced developing materials for on-line delivery?

• If you haven’t, what would concern you most about designing/adapting a course for on-line delivery?

Overview• Overview (or review) of Learning

Objects• My experience building a unit of

instruction from LOs• Challenges and compromises• The end product• The unit revisited -- discussion

Being Object-Oriented• The theory behind object-oriented

programming languages was that time and money would be saved if programs were designed so that bits and pieces could be revised without revising a thousand lines of code.

• An object would be designed to do a single task. If users’ needs changed, programmers could replace or redo that “object” without affecting the rest of the program.

Knowledge Objects• Discrete items that can be integrated

into lessons.• Not complete units of instruction – rather,

knowledge objects are building blocks.• Examples: a text or reading, an image, a

video or audio clip.• Not a Learning Object until a lesson is

attached to it.

Learning Objects• Mohamed Ally’s definition: “any digital

resource that can be used and re-used to achieve a specific learning outcome or outcomes”

Learning Objects• Any digital resource that can be

used and re-used to achieve a specific learning outcome or outcomes.

• Digital: so object can be stored in digital repository available for electronic search and retrieval

• Re-usable in different lessons, courses or instructional interventions

• Tied to a specific learning outcome so appropriate content and assessment can be included.

Learning Objects:• Revisable

– Educators should be able to revise and/or customize a single LO in isolation, without revising an entire module, unit or course.

• Stand-alone and Re-usable– LOs should be context-independent, so they

can be used in multiple lessons or courses.• Flexible

– LOs should be usable in different instructional settings (Ally mentions “learning, remediation, just-in-time learning, job aids, and enrichment”) (5).

Learning Objects:

• Linkable– Educators should be able to link LOs together

to build custom lessons/courses.

• Durable– Ideally, LOs should be designed so that they

can be used many times without becoming obsolete

• Platform Independent– LOs should be accessible from whatever

platform students and instructors are using to access the course.

• Demonstrate sound instructional design– LOs are complete “chunks” of instruction. As

such, they must make use of effective instructional strategies to help students process information, master material and demonstrate that mastery.

– For example, an LO designed using a cognitive approach might include an activity to engage prior knowledge, followed by an activity or activities to help learners process new information.

Learning Objects:

Metadata• One of the selling points of

learning objects is that they can be stored in repositories.

• Objects are tagged with metadata, a segment, in XML or HTML, which describes the purpose of the LO.

Metadata tags include:• Title of LO• Description• Language• Location

• Learning Resource Type

• Context• Cost• Keywords

A Sample Knowledge Object:

• This is an HTML file which delivers a “lecture” on freewriting for an on-line 112 course.

ClusteringIf you are more a visual than a verbal learner, you might want to try brainstorming through clustering, which combines words and images to help you develop and expand your ideas. Write your topic in the center of a blank sheet of paper and draw a circle around it. Around it write (or draw) whatever comes to mind about that topic. Then consider each of these ideas or drawings, and do the same. What you'll come up with might look something like the example on page 14 of your handbook - or you can follow someone through a clustering exercise by visiting Deb Okey's Prewriting Page , which is one of the assigned readings for this unit. Loopy WritingPeter Elbow and Pat Belanoff, two of the biggies in the field of Composition and Rhetoric (yes, there really is such a field), outlines the Loop Writing Process in their book, Being a Writer: A community of Writers Revisited. The goal of loop writing is to attack an idea from several directions, then to "loop" back to refocus on your topic when you begin revising. The Unit 1 exercise folder contains an exercise which will lead you through a writing loop. Your Process JournalThe process journal is another idea spawned in the fertile mind of Peter Elbow. The goal of the process journal is to help you to think about your own writing process. Again, the journal is private writing - what you'll submit to me is a collection, a collage, of the insights you come across when writing about how you write. Think about it this way: let's say you play golf, but aren't doing so well. You keep getting kicked off of courses for hurling divets the size of a human head every time you swing, and one more than one occasion you've had to let a troop of Brownies going for their golfing badges play through because you just couldn't get past the 2nd hole. How do you improve your swing? Well, you'll have to try to identify what you're doing right, and what you're doing well. You'll have to think about how you're standing, and how you're gripping your golf club. This is what your Process Journal will help you do with your writing. Keep in mind, however, that your journal is still a form of freewriting. Each time you sit down to write, leave a bit of time at the end for your journal. Instead of freewriting about your topic, freewrite about your writing session. Try writing the story of your session - how did you get started? What stumbling blocks did you trip over? What went really well? Each time you submit an essay to me, I'll ask you for a Process Letter: this will be a summary or collage of the insights you've developed in your process journal. The Unit 1 assignment contains an exercise which will lead you through your first process letter.

ClusteringIf you are more a visual than a verbal learner, you might want to try brainstorming through clustering, which combines words and images to help you develop and expand your ideas. Write your topic in the center of a blank sheet of paper and draw a circle around it. Around it write (or draw) whatever comes to mind about that topic. Then consider each of these ideas or drawings, and do the same. What you'll come up with might look something like the example on page 14 of your handbook - or you can follow someone through a clustering exercise by visiting Deb Okey's Prewriting Page , which is one of the assigned readings for this unit. Loopy WritingPeter Elbow and Pat Belanoff, two of the biggies in the field of Composition and Rhetoric (yes, there really is such a field), outlines the Loop Writing Process in their book, Being a Writer: A community of Writers Revisited. The goal of loop writing is to attack an idea from several directions, then to "loop" back to refocus on your topic when you begin revising. The Unit 1 exercise folder contains an exercise which will lead you through a writing loop. Your Process JournalThe process journal is another idea spawned in the fertile mind of Peter Elbow. The goal of the process journal is to help you to think about your own writing process. Again, the journal is private writing - what you'll submit to me is a collection, a collage, of the insights you come across when writing about how you write. Think about it this way: let's say you play golf, but aren't doing so well. You keep getting kicked off of courses for hurling divets the size of a human head every time you swing, and one more than one occasion you've had to let a troop of Brownies going for their golfing badges play through because you just couldn't get past the 2nd hole. How do you improve your swing? Well, you'll have to try to identify what you're doing right, and what you're doing well. You'll have to think about how you're standing, and how you're gripping your golf club. This is what your Process Journal will help you do with your writing. Keep in mind, however, that your journal is still a form of freewriting. Each time you sit down to write, leave a bit of time at the end for your journal. Instead of freewriting about your topic, freewrite about your writing session. Try writing the story of your session - how did you get started? What stumbling blocks did you trip over? What went really well? Each time you submit an essay to me, I'll ask you for a Process Letter: this will be a summary or collage of the insights you've developed in your process journal. The Unit 1 assignment contains an exercise which will lead you through your first process lette

Unit One Lecture (Content)

A Knowledge Object

Loop Writing Exercise

(Practice)

Unit One Lecture

(Content)

Process Letter (Assessment)

A Learning Object

A Course Constructed of Learning Objects

Writing essay 1Review of writing process

Freewriting Unit

Course Interface (i.e. Blackboard)

Students, multiple platforms, accessing via WWW

Which can be accessed from multiple platforms over the

WWW

Desktop PCs and Macs

Handhelds

Notebooks and laptops

Carrier pigeon

Will Wall-Mart Rule the World?

• Ally suggests that LOs can provide “just-in-time” instruction, an expression which initially made me nervous – are we Mom-and-Pop stores watching as a Wall-Mart goes up across town?

Question:• What concerns (if any) do you

have about this technology?

LOs and Constructivism• Constructivists see learners as actively

engaged in learning – creating meaning, rather than passively absorbing knowledge from instructors.

• Students can access LOs as needed – giving them great control over the sequencing of instruction. Students can even be encouraged to revise LOs or create their own.

Supporting a Variety of Learning Styles

• Linking content with LOs which, for example, present the same information in text, audio and video formats instructors can provide support for learners with different learning styles.

LOs: A New HopeLOs: A New Hope

An illustration of how LOs could save the galaxy…or at least a galaxy far, far away….

Our LearnerWhy do I have to take a writing

course? I’m a Jedi Major!

Our InstructorLuke must learn the ways of

freewriting…

The learner accesses LO, while instructor serves as facilitator…

How am I supposed just write

until I generate a

topic?

Use your feelings, Luke. The ideas will be with you…

• Because LOs are Stand-alone, Reusable and Flexible, they can be linked into courses of many instructors, supporting different teaching styles…

I don’t understand

why I have to revise my

Process Letter, Master Yoda!

Ungrammatical it is!

• As well as different learning styles…

Freewriting allows me to give in to my anger…feel the Dark

Side!

• Because LOs can be accessed as needed, providing “just-in-time” instruction, they give learners control over their own learning….

The things they make you do for tenure! At

least it’s not another

committee meeting….

Now the student has become the

Master, Obi Wan!

There is something Obi Wan didn’t tell you. The

essay is due tomorrow!

Noooooo!

Oh yes, and I’m your father.

One Teacher’s QuestThe task: build a unit of instruction

using LOs for an MDDE course in Instructional Design at Athabasca University.

1. Identify needs2. Develop design strategy3. Keep learning journal

What I Set Out to DoRevise the first unit of my on-line 112 English

Composition course. The unit needed to accomplish three things:

• Activate prior knowledge by reviewing freewriting techniques practiced in 111.

• Introduce new concepts (Loop Writing and process journaling)

• Familiarize students with the Blackboard environment, especially the communication tools they’ll use throughout the course.

Where I Started From• When I first adapted my face-to-face course to

the on-line environment, I’d more or less uploaded my on-line materials and translated my lecture notes into on-line lectures.

• Introduction to Blackboard was largely overlooked – I provided a few help files, but typically dealt with questions as they arose.

• Unit led students from discovery to writing their first essay, reviewing the entire writing process.

Challenges and Compromises

• A true LO must be context-independent.• But, in the unit I envisioned each chunk of

instruction would be simultaneously providing instruction on the core subject (writing) and on the medium of instruction (Blackboard).

• Compromise: apply insights from LOs to pacing and structure, but cheat a little in design of activities.

The End Product• How does the final product hold up

as an LO?• Ally’s elements of LOs offer useful

criteria for evaluation.• A few observations:

The Current Unit:• Revisable

– Sort of. The unit’s freewriting activities are linked to an essay to be written in unit two. However, the tour of Blackboard is self-contained.

• Stand-alone and Re-usable– Not so much. Again, the freewriting activities

are designed to generate ideas for a specific activity, to be carried out in Blackboard.

• Flexible– Not so much (see above).

Learning Objects:

• Linkable– Potentially. With some tinkering, this could

serve as a unit on freewriting to be linked with other writing-related LOs.

• Durable– Somewhat. But the tour of Blackboard is

obsolete now that Delta is switching to Compass Educator.

• Platform Independent– Yes. The original unit is written in HTML format,

and so can be read by any web browser.

• Demonstrate sound instructional design– Tentative yes. The unit employs a

number of ID strategies presenting both a cognitive strategy and a procedure using task expertise sequencing as well as self-directed instruction.

Learning Objects:

The Unit Revisited• Using true LOs to build the unit would

undermine one of the key goals – delving more deeply into freewriting than student’s might have gone before and familiarizing them with Blackboard.

• LOs could, however, provide support for the unit, including providing scaffolding for different learning styles.

A step forward…

A less context-dependent task, scaffolded with Knowledge Objects

What else?• How LOs might help us do what we

do better?

References• Ally, Mohammed (2004). “”Designing Effective

Learning Objects for Distance Education.” In R. McGreal (Ed.), Online Education Using Learning Objects. London: RoutledgeFalmer, p. 87-97.

• Elbow, P., Belanoff, P. (2001). Being a Writer. Boston: Mcgraw Hill.

• Morrison, G., Ross, S., & Kemp, J. (2003). Designing Effective Instruction (4th ed.). New York: Wiley.

• Ragan, T., Smith, P. (1999). Instructional Design (2nd ed.). New york: Wiley.