© 2004 How to create a learning design expressed in Learning Design Colin Tattersall, The Open University of the Netherlands

© 2004 Learning Design and learning design ­‘Learning Design’ (LD) ­refers to the IMS Learning Design Specification ­'learning design‘ ­refers the human activity of designing units of learning, learning activities, … ­‘a learning design' or 'the learning design‘ ­refers to the result of the learning design activity;

© 2004 IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. ­ ­Formed in 1997, two goals ­“ Defining the technical specifications for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning” ­“Supporting the incorporation of the IMS specifications into products and services worldwide” ­OUNL is contributing member (voting rights) ­Also Apple, Blackboard, Microsoft, WebCT, Cisco, Sun, Texas Instruments, …+/- 60 members ­The IMS Learning Design specification is at ­

© 2004 What is LD ? ­A learning technology specification ­Learning Design is used to model units of learning ­A unit of learning (UoL) is any delimited piece of education or training, such as a course, a module, a lesson, etc. ­more than just a collection of ordered resources to learn ­activities, assessments, services and support facilities provided by teachers, trainers and other staff members. ­Who does what, when, with whom and using which learning objects and services? ­A model of the activities, content, tools and workflow for learners and staff to accomplish one or more learning objectives

© 2004 What’s a model? ­A description of a learning process (who does what, when, etc) using the concepts in the IMS LD language (a meta-model); ­For example, we can create a model of problem based learning ­These models can be ‘played’ in an IMS-LD- aware player; ­Analogous to marking-up learning materials in HTML and having a browser interpret them

© 2004 The Learning Design meta-model ­Stage-play metaphor ­People act in different roles ­working towards certain objectives ­by performing learning and/or support activities ­within an environment, consisting of learning objects and services used in the performance of the activities.

© 2004 What LD is not …. ­Not a programming language ­… although some characteristics are shared ­Not an instructional method ­… can be used to describe many methods ­Not pedagogically neutral in the sense of not caring about pedagogy ­… indeed, it requires the designer to be explicit about his/her pedagogical choices in the learning process ­Not a guarantee of good education ­… can use it to describe poor learning processes

© 2004 What does LD give you? 1.Exchange of (multi-role, multi-learner) learning processes: 2.Re-use of learning flow and/or learning content; 3.A language for describing learning processes; 4.Comparison of approaches to learning; ­“Gold standard for Problem Based Learning is as follows …” My VLEYour VLE UoLs

© 2004 Requirements met by Learning Design ­R1. Completeness: … fully describe the teaching-learning process in a unit of learning … ­R2. Pedagogical Flexibility: … express pedagogical meaning … flexible in the description of all different kinds of pedagogies … ­R3. Personalization: … describe personalization aspects … ­R4. Formalization: … describe … in a formal way, so that automatic processing is possible. ­R5. Reproducibility:.. abstracted so that repeated execution... ­R6. Interoperability: … interoperability of learning designs. ­R7. Compatibility: … use available standards ­R8. Reusability: … identify, isolate, de-contextualize and exchange …

© 2004 Requirements met by IMS Learning Design ­R1. Completeness: … fully describe the teaching-learning process in a unit of learning … ­R2. Pedagogical Flexibility: … express pedagogical meaning … flexible in the description of all different kinds of pedagogies … ­R3. Personalization: … describe personalization aspects … ­R4. Formalization: … describe … in a formal way, so that automatic processing is possible. ­R5. Reproducibility:.. abstracted so that repeated execution... ­R6. Interoperability: … interoperability of learning designs. ­R7. Compatibility: … use available standards ­R8. Reusability: … identify, isolate, de-contextualize and exchange …

© 2004 When to formalise? ­Highly designed/planned ­Create once, deliver many ­Significant investment ­Lengthy lifespan ­Author team ­Single teacher/lecturer ­One-off ­To be revised following delivery

© 2004 The learning design with LD process ­Starting point is a narrative description of some educational process ­“Students are presented with some information on Italian Wines. The tutor is available to take questions …” ­“The lecturer posts a problem on the bulletin board. Each group of learners elects a spokesperson who summarises the problem and clarifies ….” ­“Think about your experiences as a school child, creating three statements which should be typed into a document and stored on the shared space. Once this is done, ….” Roles Activities

© 2004 The learning design with LD process ­What’s the end point? ­Say it with XML ­LD has, in common with all IMS specs, a so-called XML binding ­If you represent your UoL in the data format indicated by the binding, a conforming application will be able to do the right thing

© 2004 More on the end point ­An IMS Content Package ­Used for exchange of content ­IMS Learning Design is integrated with an IMS Content Package as another kind of organization within the element. ­An IMS content package is called a 'Unit of learning' if and only if it includes a valid IMS learning-design element in the organizations part of the package's manifest.

© 2004 The wider context Unit of Learning Design timeRun time Designers create Units of Learning containing IMS LD, XHTML content, IMS QTI, …. Learners (and staff) use an LD-aware software application in (a part of) their learning process A content package

© 2004 The formalisation process Start Finish Tools will help, especially in avoiding raw XML, but will not remove the need for a relatively Formal approach to learning design (cf software engineering world)

© 2004 But how to get from start to finish? ­Helpful to have stepping stones (intermediary stages) between informal narrative and formal XML code; ­Again lessons to be drawn from the Software Engineering world; ­(Instructional) Systems Development ­Iterative process ­OUNL found (some of the concepts of) Unified Modelling Language (UML) activity diagrams to be helpful but their use is not mandated and other approaches are equally valid

© 2004 UML Activity Diagrams ­Revolve around activities; ­Include notion of roles, serial and parallel activities, conditionality ­Not all LD concepts covered (eg where to describe how activities are completed; conditions, property setting etc); ­But help when giving an overview of a learning design ­UML Activity Diagram notation could also be extended/specialised (eg to include ways of showing selection (and number-to-select )/ sequence )

© 2004 Simple Example ­The student critiques a poem; ­The tutor grades the critique;

© 2004 UML Activity Diagram

© 2004 Practical ­In order to reinforce the idea of formalising learning design with Learning Design, we’ll take an example and try to see how it would look as a UML activity diagram ­With thanks to James Dalziel (Macquarie ELearning Centre of Excellence) and the Alfanet project

© 2004 What is Greatness ­Try to create a UML activity diagram for the following: ­Learners individually consider “what is greatness?”; ­They enter a few sentences of initial thoughts; ­This process is monitored by the tutor and ended at the tutors discretion; ­All learners then view others’ thoughts and respond to them; ­The tutor in turn responds to these reflections and finishes the learning process.

© 2004 What is Greatness – suggested approach ­See next slide

© 2004

Summary ­Doing learning design with Learning Design implies formalisation (ultimately to XML); ­This formalisation has its advantages; ­Tools are certainly needed (and are arriving) but it’s not just about tools; process also needed