Learning Objects or Learning Frameworks:

1. Learning Objects or Learning Frameworks: Steve Bond, London School of Economics Pia Marks, University of Waterloo Reusing the Design of a Multimedia Anthropology Resource

2. Overview • Reuse • the promise vs. the reality • Repurposing vs. reuse • a better approach? • What’s Going On? • The LSE/UW experience

3. Reuse: the promise “The essential benefit of learning objects is their capacity for reuse, leading to reduction in production costs” (Oliver & McLoughlin, 2003, p.95) • development costs • instructor time

4. Reuse: the reality “For some time now there has been a growing awareness that even the most accessible resources have failed to be widely adopted by the educational community and as a result have also failed to fulfill their considerable educational potential” (Campbell, 2003, p.35) • “Uptake of these resources is happening at a slower than desirable pace, despite the unquestionable quality of design and production, high levels of investment in professional development and the rationally anticipated outcome of this investment” (Gunn, Woodgate & O’Grady, 2005, p.189).

5. Cultural factors • Institutional culture offers “little incentive or support” for instructors to share or reuse resources(Campbell, 2003, p. 36). • Rewards/recognition for teaching is a real barrier to reuse: many instructors feel that “research is more highly valued than teaching and so feel a conflict when asked or expected to spend considerable time in learning to use technology in teaching” (McNaught, 2003, p.206) • “The issue of reward for publicising teaching and learning materials is of paramount importance … This necessary change in the academic culture will be a slow one.”(Koppi et al., 2004, p.461) • “Sole author” publication culture: the need to establish personal reputations may discourage work within a collaborative project (McNaught, 2003, p. 207) Technical factors:interoperability and problems with cataloguing of resources • Although the technology is in place: “the technology to support reuse is now becoming more stable, and interoperability standards and specifications are maturing” (McNaught, 2003, p.200). • Questions remain around the issue of cataloguing resources: • Whose role is it? Creator? Librarian? Are they willing and able to do it? • The JORUM hybrid model Educational factors • “Will individuals be able to preserve their own teaching style? How will this policy impinge on the evaluation of teaching?” (McNaught, 2003, p.204). • Little documented proof that LOs support learning any better than the traditional, linearly organized course; few published studies describing successful use of LOs in HE (Metros, 2005, p.12-13). Time “Locating resources and assessing the suitability of their content can be frustrating and time-consuming” (Campbell, 2003, p.36). Learning objects can be difficult to adapt to a new context: “… resources [can be] difficult or impossible to adapt and often address a very specific educational objective or employ a particular pedagogical perspective” (Campbell, 2003, p.36). “The more inherently contextual an object is, the less reusable it may be; something already loaded with context may be difficult or impossible to reuse in a new context” (Koppi et al., 2004, p.450). Why the gap between promise and reality? Problems with reuse identified in the literature: • Inflexibility of resources • Technical problems • Time • Cultural factors • Educational factors

6. Repurposing vs. Reuse Gunn, Woodgate & O’Grady (2005) propose a participative repurposing design model • defined as “a process where the original structure of a learning object is populated with content from a different source and/or subject area and used to develop new learning activities” (p.191). • involves “working collaboratively with the structure of an existing object, populating it with familiar content and embedding it within self-defined learning activities” (p.195).

7. What’s Going On? • Video-interpretation tool developed at LSE • First-year undergrad. ethnography module • Gorilla Thrilla – the Mbendjele hunter’s tale • Level 1: 3 months' fieldwork / 150 words • Level 2: 9 months' fieldwork / 300 words • Level 3: 18 months' fieldwork / 600 words • Exercise completed over 2 weeks • Students also read full ethnography

8. Content Content Configuration Configuration Repurposability of WGO • WGO fully customisable • Can be used in new teaching contexts Tool

9. The UW version How was it modified? • New video • Different focus (from linguistic to visual interpretation) • Info links contained summarized content vs. journal articles What stayed the same? The structure of the activity: • Level 1 (150-300 words) • Level 2(300 words) • Level 3(400 words)

10. UW outcomes Student evaluation: • Majority of students claimed that the exercise helped them learn about ethnography/how to analyze ethnographic data and engage with the subject matter Lessons learned: • Successful customization, with the following caveats: • Students require encouragement to take intellectual risks by making their own interpretations rather than relying on supplied textual data • Use of full research articles vs. summaries should help • Students need help in analyzing and interpreting visual data – more instructor scaffolding required

11. Advantages of a repurposing approach • addresses the inflexibility issues: • content and context are separated • addresses the educational issues: • “results in a sense of ownership, acceptance and ability to realize the potential of technology in different contexts” (Gunn, Woodgate & O’Grady, 2005, p.190.) • addresses the reuse issue: • Gives the instructor confidence to use the learning object in a variety of situations

12. Unresolved issues • Cultural factors: • Incentives to invest in teaching still don’t exist: rewards/recognition for teaching remain a barrier to reuse and repurposing • A credible reward system needs to be established by senior academic administrators • Time factor: • Repurposing requires a time commitment from the instructor which, if not supported by institutional culture, will remain problematical • WGO: A new authoring suite is available for customizing the toolhttp://clt011.lse.ac.uk:8383/steve/wgo/authoring/

13. References Campbell, L. (2003). Engaging with the learning object economy. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to e-learning (p. 35-45). London: Kogan Page Limited. Gunn, C., Woodgate, S. & O’Grady, W. (2005, October). Repurposing learning objects: a sustainable alternative? ALT-J, 13(3), 189-200. Koppi, T., Bogle, L. & Lavitt, N. (2004). Institutional use of learning objects: Lessons learned and future directions. J Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 13(4),449-463. Littlejohn, A. (2003). Issues in reusing online resources. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to e-learning (pp.1-6) London: Kogan Page Limited.

14. References McNaught, C. (2003). Identifying the complexity of factors in the sharing and reuse of resources. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to e-learning (pp. 199-211). London: Kogan Page Limited. Metros, S.E. (2005, July/August). Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name. EDUCAUSE Review, 12-13. Oliver, R. & McLoughlin, C. (2003). Pedagogical designs for scalable and sustainable online learning. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to e-learning (pp.94-105). London: Kogan Page Limited. Zemsky, R. & Massy W.F. (2004). Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-Learning and Why. Final Report for The Weatherstation Project, University of Pennsylvania: The Learning Alliance. Retrieved on July 10 2006, from http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/WeatherStation.html

15. Contact details • Steve Bond: s.bond1@lse.ac.uk • Pia Marks: pia@LT3.uwaterloo.ca • LSE – DART project: • http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/anthropology/dart.htm • University of Waterloo – LT3 Centre: • http://lt3.uwaterloo.ca/