• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

May 19 2003 Strategies and Techniques for Designers, Developers, and Managers of eLearning THIS WEEK — DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES New technologies are Using RSS and Weblogs for continually coming e-Learning: An Overview to the fore, and many of them have applica- BY BILL BRANDON tions to e-Learning. impler is better. There are a lot of “needs” in e-Learning, Weblogs and RSS and there’s often a limit to the time, talent, and money (an XML standard that can be thrown at them individually. For example, S for distribution of take facilitating communication across project teams during information) are design and development, or between instructors and learners making substantial when they are separated by time and space, or between learn- progress in 2003. ers while building a community. What if there was a way to use This overview will “public” infrastructure for this, reducing the cost of infrastruc- give you a taste of ture and software? Or what if there was a low-cost way to pub- what is being done lish learning objects for use by other developers, or to acquire with these by early learning resources for use in your own projects, or to make adopters. You may them available for direct use by learners? find some ideas that These challenges have at least two relat- two developments, and to some of the ed potential solutions that have been mak- more appropriate ways they are being will meet your needs ing rapid strides in the first half of 2003: applied to e-Learning. to do things more weblogs (or “blogs”) and RSS (an abbrevia- tion with more than one meaning, as you A fast overview simply and more will soon see). These may be familiar to Weblogs, in their most fundamental you if you are working in higher education, form, are web sites that feature commen- cheaply. especially in Canada or the United tary posted as “items” in reverse chrono- Kingdom, or if you are already an active logical order. It would be a mistake to dis- member of the weblog community. In any miss all weblogs as commentary by the A publication of case, this article will introduce you to these Continued on next page WWW.EL EARNINGG UILD.COM DEVELOPMENT / strategies self-absorbed, or as manifestos written by But in the long run, a more significant people with an axe to grind, although that aspect is that the technology behind some Publisher David Holcombe may be the first impression. The purpose weblogs makes XML and self-describing of weblog technology is to make publishing data accessible and useful to busy people Editorial Director Heidi Fisk — of anything — universally available. who are not (and who do not wish to Editor Bill Brandon Copy Editor Charles Holcombe While not all content posted to weblogs is become) preoccupied with information of critical value, the number of professional technology. This technology is called RSS, Design Director Nancy Marland and informative weblogs has exploded in which stands either for RDF Site Summary The eLearning Guild™ Advisory Board the past few months. (RSS 1.0, with RDF being an acronym for Ruth Clark, Conrad Gottfredson, John Hartnett, In particular, the number of weblogs Resource Description Framework) or for Bill Horton, Kevin Moore, Eric Parks, Brenda Pfaus addressing education and the application Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0), Marc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett of technology to teaching and learning depending on the tools you use. seems to have doubled since February of RSS is important to e-Learning develop- this year. Many of these efforts are con- ers because with this technology, it is pos- Copyright 2003. The eLearning Developers’ Journal™. cerned with reporting advances in learning sible to create and use repositories of Compilation copyright by The eLearning Guild 2003. All rights reserved. Please contact The eLearning Guild for object applications, pedagogical models learning objects on the public Internet or reprint permission. matched to the e-Learning environment, on a private intranet. Granted, this is not a The eLearning Developers’ Journal is published weekly and collaborative learning. Others are sim- solution of choice for every situation, but it by The eLearning Guild, 525 College Avenue, Suite ply the product of teachers who want to is being done and the number of applica- 215, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Phone: 707.566.8990. share ideas that have worked for them. tions is growing. The distribution of learn- The eLearning Guild is an operating unit of Focuszone For examples, see the list maintained by ing objects through RSS may be one of the Media, Inc., 1030 Beatrice Street, Eagan, MN 55121. George Siemens at http://www.elearn- next major applications to develop from The Journal is included as part of Guild membership. space.org/cgi-bin/elearnspaceblog/ weblog-related technology. To join the Guild go to www.eLearningGuild.com. archives/000920.html#000920. Apart from the fact that the technology is cheap Weblogs in detail (or even free) and the tools are getting bet- Weblogs are “websites organized by The eLearning Developers’ Journal™ is design- ter, there are two basic reasons for this time” (to quote one vendor of weblogging ed to serve the industry as a catalyst for inno- upsurge in interest. software). Because of this temporal orien- vation and as a vehicle for the dissemination of First, it is easy to set up and use a tation and their ease of use, weblogs are new and practical strategies and techniques for weblog in order to share information and becoming more common as a tool for e-Learning designers, developers and man- points of view. Little or no technical know- e-Learning developers and project man- agers. The Journal is not intended to be the how is required. A weblog can literally be agers, as a communication medium for definitive authority. Rather, it is intended instructors, and as support for learners. to be a medium through which e-Learning practi- up and running in less than fifteen min- (See Figure 1 below.) In e-Learning, most tioners can share their knowledge, expertise utes. Content can include text, images, and experience with others for the general and streaming media (both audio and relationships (instructor to student, student betterment of the industry. video). to student, project team member to project As in any profession, there are many differ- ent perspectives about the best strategies, techniques and tools one can employ to accom- plish a specific objective. This Journal will share these different perspectives and does not posi- tion any one as “the right way,” but rather we position each article as “one of the right ways” for accomplishing a goal. We assume that readers will evaluate the merits of each article and use the ideas they contain in a manner appropriate for their specific situation. We encourage discussion and debate about articles and provide an Online Discussion board for each article. The articles contained in the Journal are all THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS’ JOURNAL written by people who are actively engaged in / this profession at one level or another — not by paid journalists or writers. Submissions are always welcome at any time, as are sugges- tions for articles and future topics. To learn more about how to submit articles and/or ideas, please refer to the directions in the side- MAY 19, 2003 MAY bar on page 7 or visit www.eLearningGuild.com. 2 FIGURE 1 Weblogs are finding more uses in e-Learning. DEVELOPMENT / strategies team member) are temporary, existing only tors have found that it is also possible to order to meet objectives. Finally, learners for a set period of time, so weblogs are a use weblog technology to place live news who would otherwise be isolated from their good match. feeds inside a WebCT course, and possibly colleagues by time or distance can use inside other synchronous courses. weblogs as a platform for group projects Examples of weblog use in and for information exchange. e-Learning Learner to learner communication These are well-documented on the Web, This is potentially the most powerful Types of weblog software but here is a summary of the common application, especially where collaboration It is possible to create and post weblog applications. is a significant objective of an online learn- entries with a text editor, if you are adept ing application. This can be important in with HTML and know how to use FTP (File Communication between educators those areas of instruction where learners Transfer Protocol). Most people prefer to This was probably the first use of must construct their own knowledge in use a dedicated tool, like Blogger or Radio, weblogs in support of teaching and learn- ing, the exchange of information and ideas that work. In some cases, organizations are actively using weblogs internally as a knowledge management tool across project teams. Between organizations, weblogs support information-sharing on a global basis. By now, many e-Learning profession- als have used the weblog named elearning- post to keep up to date on developments in technology, pedagogy, and design of online distance learning. Other similar weblogs include OLDaily, elearnspace, and Serious Instructional Technology. (The URLs for these are listed in Sidebar 1 below, and all links have been added to the Resource Directory.) Such weblogs form the core of a serious and growing movement on the Web. Many educators and trainers use the RSS feeds (defined on page 4) from other weblogs to set up their own “news ticker” to bring them the latest developments in their fields of interest, on a regular (even hourly) basis. FIGURE 2 This is part of the RSS feed for the weblog in Figure 1.

Load more

  9

Copy Link