European Schoolnet

CELEBRATE

IST 2001 35188

Context eLearning with broadband technologies

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A Cross Programme Action

• Budget over 7 MEuros - 30 months• EUN Office plus 21 partners

– Belgium (2)– Finland (4)– France (3)– Hungary (1)– Israel (1)– Italy (3)– Netherlands (1)– Norway (2)– Spain (1)– UK (3)

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eLearning Summit 2001

• “Create the conditions to sustain a commercial market for eLearning content development.”

Recommendation 4

• Private sector calls for: “The creation of small learning ‘objects’ (based on open standards) could facilitate the development of new business models for content development and encourage innovative procurement mechanisms.”

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Project Rationale• “To keep concentrating on content and ‘delivery’ – disregarding

context and “community” is attempting to build the Knowledge Society with the crude tools and frames of mind used to build the Industrial Society…..If Augumented Reality, WebTV, Mobile Platforms or any other technology become mere instruments of the mechanistic “delivery” of content – they will be no more than adornments of an old, old – desperately old – Education!”Antonio Dias de Figuerdo from the University of Coimbra in Portugal,

Learning 2.0 conference in Vasteras, 2001

• Content plus Context (Community & Collaboration)– Networked learning environments and constructivist learning models

require new metaphors for how we understand content and the exchanges that take place between learners.

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The Celebrate Project• Learning Objects and Learning Community

Objects• Brokerage system of brokerage systems• Standards: LOM, SCORM 1.2• Application profiles

– ELR thesaurus– Richer set of vocabularies– Hierarchy of application profiles

• Learning Content Management Tools• Learning Management Tools• Addresses economic, organisational feasibility

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Technical Challenge– Issues related to the interoperability of LMS/LCMSs

• how do we achieve interoperability of LOs and LCOs across LMS/LCMS?

– Multilinguality and the contribution of translation tools

– An investigation of emerging Educational Modelling Schemes and Languages

– Mechanisms for predicting/anticipating the needs of teachers/learners and matching these more precisely to available learning objects (a Predictor facility)

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Interoperability of LOs

• How does one find learning objects?

• How does one create LOs and adapt LOs and ensure interoperability?

• How does one integrate learning objects with each other or into a larger structure (sequencing and courses)?

• How can one evaluate learning objects in terms of quality, the required attainment level of the student prior to using the resource, the learning gain after using the LO, and teaching effort required to integrate the LO?

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9 Work Packages

1. Requirements & Validation2.Pedagogical Models3.Brokerage System4. Creation of LOs5. Demonstrator Portal6. Broadband Pilots (Finland, France, Hungary, Israel,

Norway, UK, ENIS)7.Evaluation8. Exploitation and Dissemination9. Project management

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General ‘Bus’ Architecture

Server I Server II

Server III

Server IV

BUS

InterfaceInterface

Interface Interface

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Brokerage System of Brokerage Systems

LCMS/LMS

VLE

LCMS EUN

Central

Services

BUS

InterfaceInterface

Interface Interface

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Administration

PCs in the school

Administration

PC’s in the Classroom

CD-ROM

Networking

Resources CollaborationNetworked

School

Administration

RepositoriesLearning

Resources

Brokerage Systems Learning ObjectsLMS

LCMS

VLE

Polyhierarchy of

Brokerage Systems

Palm,

Tablet PC

Mobile

Intelligent

Learning

Personalised

VLEs

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The OASIS Project

• Interoperability of administrative data• Based on the Schools Interoperability Framework

(SIF)

• Fitting it to European needs

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Library

Transportation

Communications

Food ServicesStudent Administration

?

??

?

?

The Integration Problem

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Growing Interoperability Problems

• Applications are isolated islands.• Data is locked in “data tombs”.• Redundant data entry is common.• Disconnected applications increase support costs.• Reporting is a costly, inefficient process.

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Food Services

AgentAgent

Agent

AgentAgent

ZIS

Student Administration

Curriculum

Transportation

Library

A More Elegant Solution: The SIF Zone

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Food

Serv

ice

Gra

de B

ook

HR

/ Finance

Libra

ry

SIS

Tra

nsp

orta

tion

Instru

ction

al S

erv

ices

Voice

Tele

phony

Integration

Data Warehousing

K12 Data Model

Accountability, Reporting, Planning, etc…

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Local

School

Regional

National

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Future Developments

PCs in the school

Administration

PC’s in the Classroom

CD-ROM

Networking

Resources CollaborationNetworked

School

Administration

RepositoriesLearning

Resources

Brokerage Systems Learning ObjectsLMS

LCMS

VLE

Polyhierarchy of

Brokerage Systems

Palm,

Tablet PC

Mobile

Intelligent

Learning

Personalised

VLEs

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Why reuse? • Cost of producing a Learning Object

– 400 € for languages up to 1500 € for maths

– Given that you get graphics and manuscript for free

– If every teacher in Europe would make his own LO it would cost at least 20 billion €

• Quality– An LO being reused gains in quality

• Time– Reuse saves time for the teacher

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Does it work?

• This presentation is for more than 60% reuse

• Reuse works when LOs are designed for it and tools to share are available

• Reuse involves: find, evaluate, acquire, adapt, integrate

• A reusable LO should make this easy

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Why metadata?

• Search engines do a good job now in finding web pages, but will deliver better results if they can make use of metadata

• Learning Objects are typically packaged (e.g. in a zip file) and stored in repositories inaccessible for search engines

• A better model online bookstores

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Why metadata (cont.)• Search engines will not answer questions such as

– For which age?– Who owns the LO?– What are the conditions of use?– How much do I need to learn before using it?– Does it fit the curriculum?– What are the technical requirements?– How can I adapt it?

• Metadata are an important element for reuse• Questions like this will not get answered unless

the information is provided in addition to the LO

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Issue: How, not Why

• How can we facilitate assigning metadata to Learning Objects– Inheritance of collections

• Publisher, audience, language, …

• Drag and drop into a folder

– Predictive metadata tagging

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Why Standards?• Do you know your clothes size:

– 38 D, NL, F (sometimes)– C38 Norway, Sweden and Finland– 40 B, F (sometimes)– 44 I– 44/46 Portugal and Spain– 12 UK

• Also:– …, S, M, L, XL, XXL, …– …, 39, 40, 41, …– …, 80B, 100C, …

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“Standards help to remove barriers”

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/library/enterprise-europe/issue6/articles/en/enterprise12_en.htm

•About 1800 standards per year produced in Europe•Increasing political importance•Contribution to

•Single market•Construction products (cement)

•Consumer health•Sustainable development•Environment•Safety

•voluntary activity carried out by, and for, interested parties in accountable standards organisations that have been recognised by the European Union•involvement of 'societal stakeholders‘•Toys, weighing instruments, gas applicances, medical devices, etc.

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But also…

• Semantic interoperability– help people to understand each other better

• Technical interoperability– open systems, components

• Increase freedom– integrate content & components from various origins– think about DIN A4!

• Lower cost– Not reinventing the wheel

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Alternatives?

• De facto standards– Commercial inequalities– Dominance of US based model over European one

(cultural diversity)

• Segregated development because incompatibilities– Hypermedia before the web– Education and training: no base platform

• Disparate projects• No reuse and further development• No uptake & no impact

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Finally

• No standards, metadata, reuse will be successful

• Unless– A minimum set of high quality Los

• Produced by publishers

• Teachers with the appropriate tools

– A well supported community of teachers

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Thank you !

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Useful Links

• http://etb.eun.org/• http://celebrate.eun.org/• http://www.cenorm.be/isss/workshop/lt/• http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/• http://dublincore.org/• http://www.imsproject.org/• http://www.sifinfo.org/ • http://www.adlnet.org/• http://eml.ou.nl• http://reusability.org