Using and enhancing a normalized IMS-LD description to support learners in their appropriation of a distance-learning curriculum

2008

JIME

IMS Learning Design provides a counter to the trend towards designing for lone-learners reading from screens. It guides staff and educational developers to start not with content, but with learning activities and the achievement of learning objectives. It recognises that learning can happen without learning objects, learning is different from content consumption and that learning comes from being active. It recognises, too, that learning happens when learners cooperate to solve problems in social and work situations. In all this, it stresses that focus should fall on the learning in eLearning. This paper examines how IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD) and the current generation of IMS-LD based tooling can be used to model an eLearning case study in Astronomy, hosted by a workshop at ICALT 2006. Keywords: IMS Learning Design, authoring tools, instructional design BackgroundSignificant investments have been made by universities, colleges, distance learning providers, and corporate training departments in the area of eLearning. Moving from early, tentative use of static HTML pages on web sites, the use of the internet as a delivery technology for education and training is now commonplace, with both distance and presential learning providers exploiting eLearning in their offerings. A standards-based IT infrastructure is in place in educational institutions around the world, simplifying the delivery equation and opening the doors to mainstream, large-scale, web-based education. Many different Virtual Learning Environments exist, including significant contributions from the open source community. Above the underlying IT-standards, rest a significant number of eLearning standards, specifications and reference models, designed to improve the interoperability between systems and remove islands of eLearning.However, some have expressed uneasiness with eLearning, and are investigating how new information and communication technology developments, particularly in the area of collaboration and cooperation, could be brought into eLearning offerings.The IMS Learning Design specification (IMS-LD, 2003; is an open specification, freely downloadable, maintained by an international consortium of universities, system vendors and learning providers. At the heart of the IMS-LD specification is a model which underlies many different behaviourist, cognitive, and (social) constructivist approaches to learning and instruction: People act in different roles in a teaching-learning process. In these roles, they work toward certain outcomes by performing learning and/or support activities within an environment, consisting of learning objects and services to be used during the performance of the activities. The approach separates learning objects and services from the educational method used in the unit of learning. Put succinctly, IMS-LD allows instructional designers to say who should do what, when and with which support facilities in order to reach learning objectives.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling a case study in Astronomy with IMS Learning Design

Burgos

2008

JIME

“…The sophistication of this guidance can range from straightforward registration of the learner's progression and reviewing of course requirements to the independent brokering envisaged in the CUBER project (Boursas, Keller, & Magerkurth, 2003). In addition, once definitional data is combined with data on actual learner progression through curricula, a host of new possibilities are opened (Barré, Choquet, Corbière, & Iksal, 2004;Rasseneur, Jacoboni, & Tchounikine, 2004;Tattersall et al, 2005). These include advice on the most efficient path through a flexible curriculum (to support the 'calculating learner'), the path of highest quality (when learners want to get the best results from their learning efforts), or the path along which other peers are available for collaborative study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using IMS learning design to model curricula

Interactive Learning Environments

Janssen

Berg

et al. 2007

Abstract. The traditional notion of the curriculum as a fixed list of topics to be studied sequentially is under strain as pressure for flexibility in education increases. However, curriculum flexibility can lead to curriculum complexity, so that guidance systems are needed to assist learners in their study choices. This article proposes the use of the open, technical specification IMS Learning Design as a formal model for the description of curricula used by guidance support systems for learners. The article compares the approach to other work in the area, and illustrates its application with a number of case studies. The article concludes by describing the type of advanced guidance services which are enabled through a standardised approach and examining the elearning infrastructure required when implementing the approach.

“…In addition, a separate research strand is needed on visualising routes, positions and "to do lists" for learners, particularly in cases of complex nesting of activity structures and high degrees of optionality. Moreover, additional analysis is needed to confirm IMSLD's role in modelling "emergent routes" (the work of Rasseneur, Jacoboni, & Tchounikine (2004) would seem to confirm this assumption).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling routes towards learning goals

Campus-Wide Information Systems

Janssen²,

Berg³

et al. 2006

The traditional notion of the curriculum as a fixed list of topics to be studied sequentially is undergoing change informed by constructivist theories. However, abandoning the notion of the curriculum as a study plan raises the need to help learners in understanding both where they stand with respect to their desired competences and how these competences can be attained. This article presents a formal model for the description of routes to learning goals, designed to underpin guidance support systems for learners. The article compares the model to other work in the area, illustrates its application with a number of case studies and concludes with a discussion of the broader e-learning infrastructure required in implementing the approach.