General Trajectory of an Online Course / General Contents of a Digital Learning Object

General Trajectory of an Online Course

Different courses have different trajectories based on their purpose, their length, their contents, their modes of delivery, and other factors. An online course has to work lecture by lecture, and assignment by assignment, but it should also make sense in terms of an overall trajectory. The following gives a basic overview of a course's trajectory.

Introduction

Introduction to the instructor (telepresence)

Introduction to peers through self-introductions (social presence)

Syllabus

Policies

Repeating Cycles of Learning

Learning contents: lectures, readings, simulations, guest speakers, demonstrations

Assignments and learning activities (group and individual)

Interactivity with the instructor and other learners

Regular assessments (with regular, timely, and substantive feedback)

Term Project or Cumulative Exam

Learner Presentation of Learning

General Contents of a Digital Learning Object (DLO)

A digital learning object is a stand-alone unit of learning that is Web-playable (including in learning / course management systems, web pages, and other locales). No one has yet defined an accepted "granularity" for a DLO--or how large or small this unit of learning should be. Some suggest that there should be as small of a unit of learning as possible in this "package," so that that unit may be used in a variety of contexts. This argument is for an "atomistic" level of a learning object, where the learning is at its most irreducible (the smallest possible element). Others suggest that the learning should fill a certain unit of time, like an hour of learning. DLOs that are used in a special series or sequence may be defined by their own rules.

The general consensus of a digital learning object is that it should contain the following:

Introduction
Metadata (data about data, describing the learning object)
Learning objectives
Pre-test assessment
Learning content
Post-test assessment

However, many people use the term "learning object" for a variety of digital file types: slideshows, videos, papers, simulations, games, microsites, and other combinations of these items.

For over a decade now, there have been endeavors to create a way for digital learning objects to be "wrapped" in a way to enable it to be readable by machines and to be placed in a learning sequence. The "sharable content object reference model" (SCORM) is a set of standards that defines how the client side content and a host system (run-time environment) would interact. The system would record the learners' performance and maintain a learner history.

SCORM defined various "ilities" that could be achieved with its system (ideally).

The "Ilities" Behind SCORM

Accessibility: The ability to locate and access instructional components from one remote location and deliver them to many other locations.

Adaptability: The ability to tailor instruction to individual and organizational needs.

Affordability: The ability to increase efficiency and productivity by reducing the time and costs involved in delivering instruction.

Durability: The ability to withstand technology evolution and changes without costly redesign, reconfiguration or recoding.

Interoperability: The ability to take instructional components developed in one location with one set of tools or platform and use them in another location with a different set of tools or platform.

Reusability: The flexibility to incorporate instructional components in multiple applications and contexts.

As it stands, most learning / course management systems have SCORM players, and many authoring tools are SCORM-capable, with various wrappers that may be placed around the learning objects.

Resources

REUSABLE LEARNING OBJECTS

Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs)

"Reusable Learning Object Strategy: Designing and Developing Learning Objects for Multiple Learning Approaches." (Cisco Systems). White Paper.

"Reusable Learning Object Authoring Guidelines: How to Build Modules, Lessons, and Topics." (Cisco Systems).

CONTENT MANAGEMENT STANDARDS

Sharable Content Object Reference Model ("SCORM")

Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (Wikipedia)

IMS Global Learning Consortium

Content Packaging Specification

IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee