Gee, lots of time where the list has very little
traffic and now it's hard to keep up. ;-)
Andre Milton wrote:
> My problem with SCORM is that it defines TOO MUCH.
I had the same problem with CORBA. It was fun and
exciting watching the CORBA standard evolve in the
early '90s, but in the end, it's a huge (EXPENSIVE)
monolith that tries for too much and nobody can
effectively implement it for less than seven figures.
Hence, everybody moved over to SOAP. At present,
I still believe CORBA does more to hurt and restrict
than to enable, except possibly for the very largest
of companies with the most astronomical of budgets
(and I'm not so convinced it's good for them either,
as there are other highly viable/effective/flexible/
less-expensive options).
> I think our primary objective with a new standard
> would be to make things simple. <snip>
Agreed, most especially if we could all agree on
*what the standard is*. eLearning is a big area
(see my next post/response), and I still need help
at a bounded statement (that means something) as to
what eLearning entails.
> I'll have but a few predefined variables that tell
> the LMS how the student did in the course. The LMS
> doesn't need to know more than that. Charles, I'd
> even say that defining "well-known things" like
> true/false type structures is out of scope for our
> standard. It isn't up to the LMS to test the
> student. The LMS needs only know the results
> which should be something like SCORM's raw_score
> fields.
It's stuff like this where LMS/CMS versus eLearning
starts to make me scratch my head. Are they the
same thing or not? I've seen some fairly effective
"textbook" type material where you read a couple
sections, and must answer (correctly) a couple basic
questions before you're permitted to continue to the
next section. It's not terribly interactive, but at
least it's a couple "speed-bumps" for the student
that's been given assigned reading.
> Maybe the name of our new standard should include
> the word 'simple' or something of the like.
It worked for the Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP)! Heheheee. That was to take shots at CORBA.
Also, it worked for Unix ("do one thing well") to
take shots at the failed DARPA project Multix ("do
many different things")! ;-))))))
So, yes, I'm in agreement with you on the "simple",
mostly to be sure any effort is *highly bounded*,
or it's gonna fail (all the others I've seen have
failed). Of course, it would also be fun if we could
pick the biggest most complicated thing out there to
make fun of, and then have a simple name that means
the *opposite* of its name. ;-)
--charley (a jerk)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(sorry, I couldn't find a URL to Gary Larson's
"Far Side" cartoon with God sprinking jerks on the
Earth to, "make things interesting". ;-)
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