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(:toc#:) This page is the result of an interview with the Curriculum Facilitator — Digital, Curriculum Teaching & Learning, held on 27 November 2003. It covered interoperability and distribution issues related to The Learning Federation project (commonly known as SOCCI, schools online curriculum content initiative). The Learning Federation is a collaborative initiative between the Australian and New Zealand governments, established in 2001, spanning 5 years. New Zealand joined this initiative in July 2002. The aim is to build a rich pool of high quality online content tailored for the purposes and needs of Australian and New Zealand schools, based on a common set of standards. Summary of key points
Current information-related problemsDevelop guidelines based on common standards for metadata, content development etc. In an ideal world, all educational online repositories within NZ would be based on a common set of standards, giving the ‘networked learner’ a seamless experience. They should be able to search across a number of repositories, such as the National Library, TKI, LML, BELTS and so on. Metadata would be compliant with international standards --- with the ability to also add new terms, relevant to the NZ education context. The Ministry has a key role in providing guidance in this area.
Developing standards for digitizing assets would make it easier to assemble these assets from a range of sources and to create new learning objects.
A curriculum organiser would enable users to search for content, across a range of repositories, cross-referenced to the New Zealand curriculum. Teachers could search in a variety of ways, particular — topic, strands, learning outcomes, open word or a full sentence search etc. TLF are trialling a curriculum organiser at present, with mixed results.
Teachers need the ability to share, create & to co-construct new learning objects by selecting & combining 3rd party assets, TLF LO’s and learning objects they have developed themselves. Copyright & IP issues also need to be addressed — will be more critical as the range of assets and LO’s available come come a range of sources, not just TLF. TLF are currently involved in developing guidelines & standards in this area.
The potential of XML-based learning objects (LO’s) has yet to be fully realised. In the future, Learning Management Systems (LMS) & associated software will enable teachers (& eventually students) greater reuse & flexibility when assembling / reassembling their own learning objects. The original series of The Le@rning Federation (TLF) learning objects weren’t developed using XML, although they are now compliant.
A teacher planning a digital lesson might want to separate a set of learning objects into individual learning components and reassemble them in different ways. There is the potential to separate the text, image or audio within an existing LO, then to repurpose the LO in te reo Māori or any other language by inserting new text but keeping the existing images. It could be more cost effective and would give teachers the ability to develop their own bilingual content.
Currently the Ministry does not have a learning management system with this functionality. BELTS (basic e-learning toolset) is an interium solution, enabling teachers to simply search, view and plan a digital lesson using learning objects / assets. Our existing infrastructure & software (BELTS) does not allow us to effectively distribute the learning objects to schools.
Part of the problem is that we don’t have agreed criteria for what a Learning Management System should do. Any solution needs to be scalable and have the capacity to provide increased functionality as the teachers / student needs change & expand. The Ministry could take a leading role in evaluating, testing & providing guidelines to enable schools to make an informed choice.TLF have developed a online learning environment checklist. It is a useful reference.
Having clear guidelines / common standards would enable software developers to create (plug-in & play) solutions that are compliant with the ‘ Ministry’ approved LMS’s. This might avoid the current situation where a range of applications are stand alone & don’t comfigure with the existing set-up / infrastructure.
We need a single log-on & authentication process. Often teachers have to set up a separate user name and password for every service they use. This includes Leadspace, TLF, TKI, BELTS and so on. It would be a lot easier for teachers if they just had one sign-on or eKey. We need to make it easy for teachers to access a wide range of online learning resources / web services.
Communication & alignment is the key: There are a lot of different but related projects happening within the Ministry. We need a better way of finding out about what projects are going on, so we can communicate with each other more effectively & identify alignments. There is a bit of a risk that we will reinvent the wheel or go in different directions.
Future information-related opportunitiesWhat if every school was linked to a regional network hub and the regional hubs were linked to a central repository? Currently, most schools have their own internal networks, but few are connected to a local or regional intranet. If all the schools in a region were networked together with a high-bandwidth link to the main repository, we could start to build up regional repositories & foster learning communities. We could also link this to each teacher’s professional development programme, so it’s tied to raising the overall capability of the profession. It would be easier to deliver national education strategies at the local level, like Māori and Pasifika learning objects. It makes it easier and cheaper to deploy new technologies to support new directions. It would streamline the deployment & management of software upgrades — pump them all out from one central place.
Bandwidth / download issues & costs (for schools) would be reduced. Helpdesk support could be done remotely. It would let us set up more efficient distribution models for sharing digital content.
From the teachers’ perspective, this infrastructure would enable them to co-construct and share learning objects with other schools — develop their own learning communities, without having to manage or maintain the infrastructure.
Let teachers focus on what they do best — teaching kids. We want teachers to focus on what they do best — creating a quality teaching and learning environment using a range of resources (both digital & non-digital). To make this a reality, teachers have to feel safe — the technology just works, they don’t have to be a designer, programmer or network technician. If we look at what The Correspondence School is doing, they are combining videoconferencing, learning management systems and other ICT resources, along with traditional teaching tools, into a seamless learning environment.
Keep us informed about where ESAF is heading. Tell us what’s happening when, so we can make the connections with other Ministry initiatives — this would help us with our ICT-related decisions. Keep us in the loop and give us opportunities to provide feedback early, so we can influence decisions. Give us the key messages that we need to share with our colleagues.
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