The Art of Knowledge
Gord's Voicing his Thoughts
Apparently the owner of e-Learning eclectic is down in Disney world eating lots of free food and drinking carbonated beverages while learning about the new revolution of learning. There are a ton of keynote speakers down there. Everyone from General Tommy Franks (yeah I know) to Mr. Masie is in attendance. Mr. Masie has a "from the road report" here. He basically goes over some high points of the conferences. It's sort of interesting. But Gord harps on this one point on his sight, and I'll just paraphrase some comments that I found interesting.
He says that Wayne Hodgins is trying to make sure people don't lose sight of their content objectives. He seems to think that content without context is pointless. I agree with this and I think Gord does as well but Gord says,
- In theory there's no reason why this couldn't be done now...although I don't believe any major system is doing anything precisely like this at the moment (anyone care to enlighten me?). But, as far as I know, there is no initiative to work on the standards that would be required to do something along these lines in an interoperable fashion (again, maybe you know something I don't...let me know!). Who wants to build a system with tons of content that may not be transferable to new systems (or different systems)?
Also, it seems to me that such a system works well for "simple static content" such as text, graphics, audio, and video… but works less well, I think, when we begin to incorporate workplace simulations, games, and interactive activities and experiences. Such interactive content tends to be less "liquid" and cannot simply be poured from one template to the next or from one platform to the next.
I don't think any major system does this either. I think the user is totally ignored by a lot of these repository initiatives. To make the curricula or systems or architecture somewhat biological has always been my goal. Now I worked on a much smaller scale, but the repository of content is pointless unless it's served to the user in a familiar medium that they can relate to( I also think Knowledge mapping plays a major role in the idea of mediums). Teaching the user the tools in which to explore the content and making them proficient in the atmosphere in which they learn could throw a major boost to the learning curve.
For example, when I go to Google to get information (content) I have no idea what medium it will be served up in. Now it is Google and not an LMS (aren't they really sort of the same in a lot of ways), but I find the content just the same. I usually find the content to be useful and poignant. Why? I know how to use the tool properly to find information. I think training the user on tools may make for a much easier transition to multiple mediums holding the same content. That may be a patchwork solution and I am sure that there are people out there now thinking up big ways in which to actually deliver the content to a person's individual medium preference. But, my first step, if it needed to be, would be to make the user proficient in their use of the system. I saw that Macromedia Breeze presentation by those guys in Canada ( I thought it was awesome) but initially I had no idea how to get the answers I needed out of it. It was my inability to interact with the medium as opposed to the medium not having the correct content.
I also like the remark about content "simply being poured into different templates" on more advanced mediums such as simulations. I think currently these simulations and interactive components aren't universally standardized. In a couple of years or maybe sooner you will start to see more standardization of these more "interactive" mediums. They may already be out there.
Link posted by JVMM : 11:42 PM