Forum .LRN Q&A: Re: Adaptive learning

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2: Re: Adaptive learning (response to 1)
Posted by Michael Feldstein on 01/15/03 06:01 PM

OK, let me take this one paragraph at a time.

Michael, whether you are actually saying this or not, I get the feeling that you are saying: "Curriculum is not so important that it is worth implementing right away; nevertheless it is so important that it demands several months of further research." This conclusion actually makes sense if we presuppose (1) that the users and promoters of dotLRN have displayed no interest in Curriculum's functionalities and (2) that the technical solution of these functionalities will affect the very foundation of the groupware, because it demands a dotLRN that is an LMS.

Nope, that's not what I'm saying. Here are the points I'm trying to make:

  1. From the perspective of evangelism and of driving wider adoption (somewhat redundant, I know), implementing Simple Sequencing, which is part of the upcoming SCORM 1.3, before implementing SCORM 1.2, is putting the cart before the horse. This in no way means that I'm discouraging community members from scratching their own itches. If somebody out there is saying, "I can use this right now and I'm willing to put my resources toward it, then far be it from me to interfere.
  2. In addition to the fact that, all else being equal, I think implementation of SCORM 1.2 will be far more important in the short term for driving wider adoption than Simple Sequencing will be, I also, frankly, don't believe that the IMS approach to standards in general and the approach they've defined in Simple Sequencing in particular is the right solution to the adaptive learning problem. I'm speaking from experience, having just written an adaptive learning course and being in the process of writing another one right now. I'm not eager to rush out and implement a specification that I think is deeply flawed. That having been said, since it *has* been adopted by ADL for SCORM 1.3, I would add that being partway to SCORM 1.3 compliance would not be a bad thing.
  3. I certainly did not intend to imply that implementing curriculum using Simple Sequencing would somehow do damage to the dotLRN core. My reasons for advising caution are the onese I state above. But I repeat that if people need a SS-based curriculum module now and are willing to invest their own resources then more power to them.

You're absolutely right when you say that IMS specifications are not likely to provide us with any sort of guidance to usability. Even IMS agree with that. As the IMS Simple Sequencing Specification makes perfectly clear: "The nature of the control and communication interfaces, and the mechanisms for mediating interactions between the a learner and a LTS, are not part of this Specification. In addition, issues such as look and feel, presentation style, and placement of navigation controls are not defined by this Specification." These are matters that the community and other vendors will be able to develop to their liking as soon as the basic structure is implemented. And I have great confidence that six or nine months down the road, you'll bring the implementation to new levels of perfection. You’re certainly the community’s expert in this field.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it's not usability of the UI that I'm worried about. I'm worried about usability of the schema in terms of supporting course design. What is simple sequencing all about? It's about interactivity. It's about teaching your course to respond to the learner's needs. It gets to the heart of good teaching and of everything that's hard to do in self-paced online learning. I don't think that a pre-defined taxonomy of interaction types--any taxonomy of pre-defined interaction types--is going to solve this problem. I'd prefer to use more organic methods like those that underly the semantic web concept.

Now, it's possible that I'm underestimating the flexibility of the IMS specification. You have undoubtedly spent more time looking at it than I have. But I'm fundamentally skeptical about their approach and I don't see anything in what I've puzzled through of the spec over the last several months that encourages me to change my mind.

I'm kind of curious to know where your skepticism toward IMS comes from. I don't know what it is you expect IMS to solve for you, which they have failed to do, that has made you disappointed in them. Their Simple Sequencing Specification certainly provides us with the architectural blueprint we seek for our purposes. And as even NATO's ADL SCORM turn to IMS for standards, I can picture us doing the same. Whether or not IMS is a complete and satisfying authority for turning dotLRN into an LMS (as the industry defines the term) I have not the slightest idea, and will gladly leave that analysis to those who are actually working on such a task.

I am not expressing global skepticisim toward the IMS. In fact, if you look at my posts on these boards, you'll find that I have been a vocal advocate for aggressive adoption of their standards. I even have been an advocate of simple sequencing until recent experience changed my mind. I just don't think that they have the right approach to solve this problem. (They face a similar challenge, with similarly questionable results, on the test question standard, BTW.) Not all educational standards problems are equally easy and not all are equally well served by the same solution approach. Sequencing is one of the hardest problems we have. People have been writing about "intelligent tutoring systems," which are essentially adaptive learning systems, for at least 30 years. How many of these have you actually seen outside of some university's comp sci laboratory?

At any rate, the implementation of Curriculum does not affect the question of user profiles.

I agree.