Hi, All-- I apologize that this response is a little long, and that I've included a couple long quotes. But, I believe the issue is quite large, relevant to this forum, and somewhat unique compared to recent threads. (We're talking about a somewhat comprehensive approach to eLearning beyond current industry convention.)
Vanessa Layne wrote: > <snip, is web developer at non-profit org, on-line > professional development for K-12, collaborative > on-line learning> ... indeed, we would very much > like to be involved in the formulation of any > "elearning" standards. > > Our perspective is slightly different <...from...> > the corporate learning environment and how ill > served it is by the "training" model inherent in > most LMS's. <snip>, we are "constructivists" > (a philosophy of education which stresses "hands on" > and "inquiry based" learning, as opposed to > didaction or lecture) ... Ok, *break*. Yes, this is different. As most people here know, typical "eLearning" is mere "instruction", and actually fairly primitive instruction at that (minimal student interaction). The goal is often to simply have a text book, maybe with some multi-media presentation, maybe with some tests and student evaluations. Possibly, there's an interest in classroom "collaboration", which usually becomes some type of bulletin board, online chatroom, or other multi-user forum (probably with upload/download capability to share files/resources). But, again, we're still talking traditional web stuff. This isn't bad... it's just stuff we understand. Getting more intimate content interaction with the student, including a content base that grows/changes based on client interaction, is pretty open-ended (some things can/should change, like the addition of content and the adjustment of metrics for "validated" content, but some things should not change like the fact that a student with a partial understanding should not change the validity of content to where the content is now deemed "less-correct". Also, we're opening up large areas of concern for "signal-to-noise", where we want student input, but we want serious "data cleaning" where the low-quality input is improved or removed. > Yes, hands-on and on-line: for some of the courses > we have developed with a university partner as part > of their Masters in Education program, when a > student enrolls, they are shipped a box of lab > supplies to use in their own home. A crucial part > of this program of study, is that the students > upload their data from their experiments to > the web site. > > Another key part of the program is the student -- > who, remember, is learning how to teach this > material -- must design a course plan for > teaching this material to a grade-school class, and > upload that course plan for review and comments by > fellow students. > > Now try implementing that through <existing tools>. Good points. Serious issue. Different domain from current convention. I very much like Vanessa's distinction between a system for "instruction" and a system in support of "learning". Those are *completely* different (and I'm quite fond of Richard Mitchell's writings here, late Professor of English at Glassboro College and then Rowan University, died at age 73 early this year: <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/obituaries/4851050.htm>) Summary: Current systems support instruction. To actually support *learning*, we must somehow engage the student with a level of interactivity I've not seen in any eLearning tool. > I have heard it often said that one must not confuse > a CMS for an *application* server. But that is > *precisely* what is needed in the on-line > *education* market -- as opposed to "training" > market. Yes, there's that distinction again: I don't have preference regarding terms, but by "application server", I understand you're after a higher-level of interaction with the "student" where content is synthesized by the student instead of regurgitated. > Let us clarify a few things. What gets lumped under > "learning" -- "e" or otherwise" -- actually can have > several very different characters. The issue is > *not* whether it happens in industry or in school or > in some other context. Instead, the issue is what > activities the student does as part of that > "learning" process. > > The problem with LMS's is that they presuppose a > very small repertoire of student learning > activities: they provide means for textual or > graphical information to be presented to the student > for reading/studying; they provide means for > (mechanically scorable) tests to be administered to > the student; they may provide a forum/webboard for > discussion amongst students and/or teachers. > > That may be adequate to "train", for lack of a > better word, a person to do a task. But that's > hardly education. There are a lot of vendors on this list, in addition to users and academics. Those curious about this issue and interested in building products I beg to take notice: It is *not* "learning" when we provide a stimulus to evoke a response. That is mere instruction. You can do that with dogs and monkeys, and as it turns out, most children and employees. Tools that stop at that level are *not* "learning" tools, regardless of what a marketing department asserts (but I accept that's all we currently expect in today's "eLearning" tools). Further, this is a major flaw in the US education system since the 1970's, as stimulus/response activities are the central theory-of-operation in K-12 education, and sadly, is even increasingly used even at University. I don't dismiss the value of instructional tools: Indeed, that's all most companies need or want. They want trained employees when it's too much paperwork to get the Health Department to approve trained monkeys, and when the task requires an opposable thumb that rules out dogs. I'm just asserting that mere instructional tools are entirely insufficient for something more advanced like the expectation of increased student sophistication and understanding through true material internal synthesis. And, as a parent and a taxpayer supporting public education, those types of tools are entirely unsuitable, inappropriate, and even damaging, in a true academic environment (both K-12 and college/University). > <snip>, Which brings us to an important point. > Education is a *profoundly* political topic. One of > the things which must be understood by CMS players > looking to move into the LMS arena is that these are > treacherous waters. <snip, examples> > > Similarly, there are no standard terms for > discussing different styles of class/training -- and > what terms there are are not "value neutral". > > This makes it astonishingly difficult to extract > user requirements! Yes, I fear this to be oh-so-true... > Another issue is that it is critical, when > discussing LMS's, to differentiate between the > management of learning materials, and the > "meta data" of the student's usage of the system. > Keeping track of what courses the student has > completed is not management of learning materials. > Perhaps that might be more properly considered the > province of a "Registration Management System". Now *that* I think we can have more hope on in the short term. We can define bodies of info that's mostly constant or "authoritative" (dates, facts, etc.), bodies contributed (needs to be validated), bodies based on user interaction (meta-data like you describe like evaluations of student performace over materials), and other types of meta-info (how did the whole class do, how do different classes do on the same material over time, etc.) Those bodies of info are identifiable and bounded, although we'll most definatly need a solid glossary (as Vanessa describes, we must be *very* careful to select terms minimally suggestive of opinion). > Which is not to say that such a hypothetical RMS > wouldn't run into the same basic problem, of > presupposing a single universal structure of > assets which overly constrains organizations which > attempt to use it. Ah, there's the rub, eh? To be complete we might impose errors-of-measure and we might even project errors-of-conception regarding what the "standard" is trying to say (perhaps the "standard" we might create doesn't apply equally well to all cases). > I am told MIT elected to implement its own > registrar system in-house, because it uses a unique > unit system for its classes -- no off-the-shelf > product would accommodate them. Yep. That's what we did for the same reason. We're all just experimenting since don't know *exactly* what we want, but in many cases know what we *don't* want, and often times there is no commerical system minimally sufficient as a "starting point". Or, if there is a partially acceptable existing "starting point", the solution's "baggage" or development coordination/inefficiencies are believed to not be worth the effort (in regards to learning/eLearning tools). In conclusion, I assert that today's CMS really encompasses today's eLearning, except that CMS has not yet embraced nor provided optimized behavior for basic "instruction" requirements as expected by today's eLearning customers (I think that's fairly straight-forward for most CMS vendors to do if they felt like it). Also, whether eLearning is from CMS or existing eLearning tools, that merely gives us "instructional" tools, and not really "learning" tools (a *much* harder problem), although it's possible (probable?) that instructional tools can be at least somewhat useful as a subset of things that may be relevant in a true "learning" tool. So... While we usually talk about what is/isn't CMS, we now have to ALSO talk about what is/isn't eLearning? Ouchie. I'm hungry. Let the fruit and vegetables fly (and as an FYI, ripe bananas don't hurt as much as the green ones). --charley [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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