In the last few years, the concept of the “Learning Objects Model” has been a keystone in the discussion of web-based learning (and even learning in general). The model suggests that content can be composed as small self-contained units that can then be contained. The perspective is very interesting: If every piece of educational content is created in a self-contained and reusable way, it would be possible to create huge courses simply combining these objects as LEGO bricks.
The model will only work if these pieces of content can be easily identified (in a repository, for example) and can be deployed together in, say, a Learning Managament System. For this reason, there have been huge efforts in the direction of standardizing these procedures. The IMS Content Packaging specification defines how we should distribute these Learning Objects so that they can be deployed in different platforms without an adaptation effort. When it comes to “discovering” these Learning Objects in a repository, we need standardized metadata (like IEEE LOM or DublinCore) that allows us to search in these repositories and quickly decide if the LO is suitable for our needs. Some higher-level initiatives combine different standards and propose a generic model for the deployment of online materials (ADL SCORM would be the most relevant example).
The model, as most things, has faithful believers and angry opponents. Personally, I haven’t decided yet. I do believe that the idea of resuing educational content is good (it sort of works in programming) but tend to reject the concept of standardized content. Without standard students, standard content seems like a bad idea. This is one of the reasons why I think game-based learning is good and adaptive game-based learning is great.
However, I also believe that the current e-learning infrastructure can be leveraged as a deployment method. E-Learning parcipants (developers, instructors and students) are more open to new ideas than the traditional school participants. Besides, most schools and universities are shifting towards a blended learning (b-learning) approach that combines traditional classes with e-learning technologies. A teacher from an online training environment, a school or a university can use an e-learning platform to send the games to the students so that they can play with them at home.
Putting both ideas together, my idea was that we could encapsulate the games as standards-compliant Learning Objects so that they can deployed by a teacher in (mostly) any Learning Management System and played by the students at home. Additionally, if the games are labelled with standardized metadata, they can be stored and discovered in content repositories, which seems like a good a idea in itself.
We are trying to support and test this idea with the <e-Adventure> platform. Thanks to the programming talent displayed by Javier Torrente, from version 0.3 <e-Adventure> supports tagging the games with IEEE LOM metadata and then exporting them as IMS packages. We will soon be publishing a detailed report on our experiences, which include successful deployment of the games in platforms such as WebCT and Moodle, and easy inclusion of the games in bigger modules using the Reload Editor.
In the meantime, why don’t you try for yourself? Download the new version, export your game as a Learning Object and try to deploy it in your LMS of choice. We will be waiting for your kind feedback.
