Are we ready for mass adoption of
Learning Design?
James Dalziel
Professor of Learning Technology and Director,
Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)
Macquarie University
james@melcoe.mq.edu.au
www.melcoe.mq.edu.au
Keynote Presentation for the 2008 European LAMS Conference, Cadiz, Spain, 26th June, 2008
Overview
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A Vision for Educators of the Future
What is Learning Design?
Challenges to overcome
Challenges that remain
Some personal reflections
A Vision for Educators of the Future
• Educators agree how to describe sequences of
educational activities (ie, lesson plans)
• Educators create “digital lesson plans” that make it
easy to run educational activities on computers
• Educators share good “teaching ideas” (digital lesson
plans) with their colleagues
• Educators are free to adapt, localise and improve
good teaching ideas from others
• By collectively sharing and improving good teaching
ideas, educators could revolutionise education
What is Learning Design?
• “Learning Design” (LD) has several different
meanings:
– A descriptive framework
– A type of e-learning software
– An approach to supporting effective pedagogy
What is Learning Design?
• Learning Design as a descriptive
framework/language/notation system
– Technical examples (IMS LD, LAMS XML, LDL, etc)
– General examples (structured lesson plans, patterns, etc)
• Key concept: able to represent many different
pedagogical approaches (“pedagogical neutrality”)
• Greatest potential, but hardest to understand
Date of manuscript unknown. Held in Florence, Italy.
Photo by Asiir 17:00, 13 February 2007, Wikipedia.org
First page of the manuscript of Bach's lute suite in
G Minor. Wikipedia.org
What is Learning Design?
• Learning Design as e-learning software
– Arose from limitations with existing e-learning software,
especially Course Management Systems (CMS)
– Focus on collaborative learning activities
• The missing dimension of SCORM/courseware
• Key concept: sequencing of activities
– Learning Design systems are radically different to Course
Management Systems “under the hood”
• Workflow engine vs groups-based website management
What is Learning Design?
• Learning Design as an approach to supporting
effective pedagogy
– Describing and sharing good ideas for teaching and learning
– Helping educators to consider new approaches to improving
student learning (ie, taking some risks!)
– Giving advice to educators on appropriate course design, tool
choice and activity structures to meet student learning needs
• Key concept: Not focused on pedagogical neutrality
– Supporting educators with effective approaches to teaching
Educators
Sharing Effective Learning Designs
Learning Design Software
Learning Design Descriptive Framework
Challenges overcome
• Learning Design Descriptive Framework
– Technical:
• EML, IMS LD, LAMS XML, LDL, etc give us real examples
of a technical framework
• New work on mapping and underlying concepts/ontology
– General descriptive;
• Structured lesson plans, AUTC Learning Design graphics,
educational patterns, etc give us non-technical examples
– Early work on combined face-to-face + technology
descriptions (eg, LAMS “offline activities” information field)
Challenges overcome
• Learning Design software
– Far more difficult than anyone imagined, but…
– Real examples in LAMS, Coppercore/ReLoad, etc
• Eg, LAMS Community has 3200+ members, 86 countries, 280+
sequences, 7300+ downloads, 3600+ forum postings
– LAMS integrations with Course Management Systems (eg, Moodle,
Blackboard, WebCT, Sakai, .LRN, Microsoft Sharepoint)
– LAMS “Tools Contract” provides a framework for “LD aware” tools
– V2.1 branching, optional sequences, new grouping – more flexible
• Some LAMS features that matter for LD adoption
– Preview: Allows for iterative LD authoring by non-technical educators
– Automatic tool instantiation: Allows sequences to run immediately
– Progress bar: Loads next activity for students, so they don’t get lost
LAMS 2.1: Example of Branching (Interactive Whiteboards – Role play)
Challenges overcome
• Sharing Effective Learning Designs, eg:
– LAMS Community – repository and discussion
– AUTC Learning Designs website exemplars, etc
– Lessons from LAMS Community experiences:
Direct re-use vs inspiration
– The affordances of Learning Design systems have
fostered more activity-centric learning (vs content-centric)
Challenges that remain
• Learning Design Descriptive Framework
– Technical:
• Still early days – much more work to be done
• Tool setup/invocation
• Global properties vs tool properties
• Easy interoperability across different LD systems
– Descriptive
• If you only have 1 or 2 pages, what is essential to convey
to another teacher? (cf music notation)
Challenges that remain
• Learning Design software
– A very long list of desirable features…
– “Deep” integration with Course Management System (ie, LD
authoring and sequencing engine, but CMS tools)
– Basic tool interoperability for sharing designs across systems
– Looping and other non-linear structures
• Including open game-like environments
– Role-based LD-aware activity tools
• Eg, handing moderation of a Chat to a student
Challenges that remain
• Sharing Effective Learning Designs – the big
challenge:
– What mixture of learning platforms, activity tools, course and
activity advice, learner needs identification, design sharing
communities, design templates and/or ready-to-use
sequences will crystallise mass adoption?
– Or, is the problem elsewhere? (lack of teacher rewards for
sharing and re-use; too focused on teacher control of
learning; no clear evidence of educational benefits to justify
teacher extra effort; IP concerns about sharing; other?)
LAMS Activity Planner
• New project (finally funded!) to explore implementation
of an Activity Planner for LAMS
• Activity Planner components:
– A library of templates
– A decision process to help educators select a template
• Including advice
– Easy content creation/editing for the chosen template
– (And features to allow experts to create their own planners)
LAMS Activity Planner: Selecting a template
LAMS Activity Planner: Filling out the key content for a selected template
Some personal reflections
• We have enough LD technology, although there is
much more worthwhile work that could be done
– But… radical ease of use remains critical
• Creating an activity planner for busy educators
– Where choices are driven by timing, computer access and
collaboration constraints of the teaching context
– Focus on small sequences that instantiate “good ideas” for
small group (class/tutorial) teaching and learning
Some personal reflections
• Would there be value in creating topic-specific activity
planners?
– Eg, a suite of sequences for the main topics of introductory
psychology – including easy editing to “tweak” content
• (And full LAMS authoring is available if desired)
• Where are the textbook publishers?
– They represent existing “re-use” of educational content on a
huge scale, but little work on prepared activities (vs content)
– We don’t need all publishers – just one….
Some personal reflections
• Some approaches assume educational designers
can “talk pedagogy” to busy educators “up front”
– My sense is that normally designers need to earn trust first
• (Unless new course, major redesign or major problems)
– One way to earn this trust is helping with a small, practical
implementation of a new teaching idea
• A wider pedagogy discussion comes after a small
success
Are we ready for mass adoption
of Learning Design?
Yes…
No…
If only…