[Oz-teachers] what the ... ?

Fri Nov 28 14:55:13 EST 2003

Thanks Andrew for the fullsome response and for putting us clearly in the 
picture about the birth phase of these 'babies' as Peter would have them :-)

I hope that EQ is fielding some robust research while conducting out these 
pilots (not just anecdotal stuff and rubbery figures/stats). I think you are 
in a brilliant position to really contribute to the field from these online 
pilots and the teacher and student practices that might evolve around them.

One issue though - surely copyright was on the table from the beginning as 
these were to be custom designed objects (ie no third party material). What IP 
should be attached? 

Wasn't this developed with public moneys who will be paying licensing?  I am 
confused here? Will people get to see them before that - why so darned 
secretive? Isn't this supposed to be in the spirit of sharing?

Bronwyn

PS the fact that kids love a silly frog or a gecko does not mean it is 
appropriate to dress a frog in clothes nor for me as a teacher to use such a 
banal actvity. A 2 year old could dress a doll for the right weather.
Such activities make Maths Blaster look pedagogically sound.

BIG QUESTION Who is "your audience" in a learning object? Is it the teacher 
who chooses to adaopt/adapt it or the student who uses it or both?

Quoting "DALGLIESH, Andrew" <Andrew.Dalgliesh at qed.qld.gov.au>:

> Hi everyone
> 
> I have today rejoined this list after a couple of years absence and I believe
> I can add to this discussion. By way of background, I am the Contact Liaison
> Officer on The Le at rning Federation initiative for Education Queensland. That
> means I work for EQ and my role is to help prepare staff in EQ to get the
> most from this initiative, and keep the heirachy informed about the sucess or
> otherwisee of our investment. It isn't my aim to be an apologist for the
> initiative - I have to take a critical view of it to ensure my department
> gets good value. But I am glad to see more informed debate around this and
> hope I can contribute.
> 
> As a result of my role, I get a huge amount of feedback from a wide range of
> people in the field, as well as getting to find out a lot about the
> background and progress of the initiative. So I have put together some
> comments that I hope will put a lot of this issue into perspective...
> 
> 1. At this stage, content release from The Le at rning Federation (TLF - because
> everything has to have an acronym!) is only being done on the basis of
> trialling. This is because intellectual property and licensing issues are
> still being negotiated and jurisdictions are keen to get a good balance
> between their rights as end-users, and their interests as investors. For this
> reason, the learning objects will only be made available for distribution to
> schools as part of trials. In Queensland, we have about 60 schools involved
> in such pilots and expect to get more on for the new year (please contact me
> if you are interested!) I am hoping licenses will be finalised early next
> year and we can start to move to wider distribution then.
> 
> 2. The TLF website contains one object available for viewing (Give me a
> Brake) and it runs fine with the right techincal specs. The full range of
> specs (which are constantly being updated and include specs on educational
> soundness and accessibility) can be found at:
> http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf/newcms/view_Page.asp?
Men_Id=72&page_id=8519
> Further objects are not being made available beyond the trialling process but
> I can tell you that we have already taken delivery of 111 objects in Science,
> Mathematics & Numeracy, and Literacy for Students at Risk.
> 
> 3. There are a lot of issues about delivery of learning objects that
> jurisdictions will have to work out. In Queensland we are delivering through
> the Curriculum Exchange, with CD's as a supplementary form of access. We are
> keen not to see all our networks and servers fall over so our pilots and
> releases will be incremental to minimise risk and maximise continuity of
> service. Other issues relate to deployment of content once it arrives in the
> school and helping schools minimise bandwidth issues with a balance of online
> and local solutions.
> 
> 4. Ultimately, it would be good to combine online services to allow teachers
> an easy-to-use interface to search for, select and integrate a range of
> digital resources, including learning objects, into online courses and other
> e-learning experiences. Bronwyn makes a good point about the tension between
> an open-source style teacher publishing and sharing  model, and one that
> emphasises quality control, digital rights etc. Ultimately, there is no
> reason we cannot have, and benefit from, both. Good content and digital
> rights management should accommodate, through metadata, tracking of use based
> on IP and Licensing attributes. A good repository (I think) should allow
> teachers to take an obejct and modify it (or build a new one from scratch)
> and upload it to a wider audience, after which some kind of metadata editing
> would occur as a result of use, nomination and referral by teachers. In other
> words, the more teachers find, use and recommend a new object, the further up
> the chain it goes and to a wider audience. There are a range of ways this
> might work (coneptually as well as technically) and I would love to hear
> people's ideas.
> 
> 5. The quality of some early TLF objects, particularly from Science 1 (the
> ones Brownywn described are from this release) has been questioned by a
> number of people and I know that the TLF has changed its content procurement
> processes to address some of these issues. In particular, instead of having
> multimedia developers supply their own educational partners, TLF now takes a
> more active role in finding and developing the education writers and linking
> them to the developers.
> 
> 6. My first exposure to TLF learning objects was last year when I trained as
> an In-School Evaluator, to go into schools and get feedback from students
> about content in development. I remember seeing some of the objects Bronwyn
> described and thinking exactly the same as she did. I too, believed these
> were "...amateur, simplistic and twee..." and I also hated the voice of the
> Gecko who was one of the characters. Most of the other people in the room
> felt the same. Later that year I had the pleasure of visiting Mistake Creek
> State School where I was surprised at how engaged the students were with the
> objects. The styles I thought were simplistic, they loved. The concepts I
> thought would confuse them, they understood. They even liked the damn Gecko!
> I have since received similar stories from other jurisdictions and it
> confirmed for me the importance of connecting with your audience early on in
> the development process. We have worked very hard at impressing on TLF the
> importance of this.
> 
> 7. I realise that it is early to start making assumptions about quality on
> tha basis of our trials to date, but I can tell you that 87.5% of respondents
> so far in our pilots have said they would "certainly" recommend the TLF
> learning objects to colleagues, and 12.5% said they "probably" would. (0% for
> "possibly" and "not at all"). At this stage, the main issues seem to be
> around delivery and deployment of the content rather than its quality or use
> in curriculum contexts and professional development is an area we are keeping
> a close eye on. My view at the moment is that PD will work best when it is
> integrated into PD about online learning and ICTs generally rather than being
> separated out too far.
> 
> 8. The whole concept of the "learning object" model is an interesting one and
> you should read some of Stephen Downes comments on this. TLF is generally
> regarded as a leader in the development of online content partly because of
> the huge amount of work being done around standards and interoperability, but
> also because of their emphasis on constructivist pedagogy. Many other
> countries are developing collections of LO's but they are often very linear
> and assume a more traditional pedagogy. Of course, there is always a fairly
> rigourous debate about what a LO is, and what it should do. Some believe it
> should be a sophisticated digital experience that embeds good pedagogy.
> Others believe it should be small, repurposeable and not imply particular
> approaches to teaching or learning. A question that often arises, and
> reflects this kind of debate, is whether a digital photo can be regarded as a
> "learning object"?
> 
> 9. One more thing TLF is doing you may be interested in is approaching a
> range of public institutions to capture their extant content for packaging
> and distribution through the TLF Exchange. I have heard some very interesting
> sound files, including a radio broadcast by Kingsford-Smith, and seen some
> great digital photos that teachers would love to be able to use.
> 
> If you are in Queensland and would like to know more about our pilots, please
> get in touch with me directly. Your own education authorities have their
> equivalents of me and they will be able to give you a good idea of how your
> state or territory views the initiative and what your local issues are.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Andrew
> 
> ------------------------------------
> Andrew Dalgliesh
> Senior Project Officer
> ICTs and Learning
> Education Queensland
> Mobile 0417 751 495
> Phone 07 3421 6586 Fax 07 3421 6588
> PO BOX 1238 Coorparoo DC 4151
> ------------------------------------
> 
> This e-mail (including any attached files) is intended only for the addressee
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> 
> Unless explicitly attributed, the opinions expressed do not necessarily
> represent the official position of Education Queensland.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: oz-teachers-bounces at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
> > [mailto:oz-teachers-bounces at rite.ed.qut.edu.au]On Behalf Of Peter
> > Macinnis
> > Sent: Friday, 28 November 2003 8:01 AM
> > To: Professional community for teachers
> > Cc: Tony Webster
> > Subject: Re: [Oz-teachers] what the ... ?
> > 
> > 
> > Stephen is a long-standing mate, and very cluey.  What he says carries
> > clout.
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Stephen Loosley" <stephen at melbpc.org.au>
> > To: <oz-teachers at cobia.ed.qut.edu.au>
> > Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 12:35 AM
> > Subject: [Oz-teachers] what the ... ?
> > 
> > 
> > > Hi all ..
> > >
> > > Haha .. here's a good one ...
> > >
> > > Remember the fanfare so long, and so many dollars, ago when
> > > The Le at rnning Federation was announced?  It was going to be
> > > the ultimate in Australian teacher online usefullness.. with scads
> > > of online curriculum, and apparently all paid for by our tax
> > dollars.
> > >
> > > Haha, anyone even visited their website lately? What a joke. After
> > > so much time and money, all they can assist teachers in their work
> > > with is one pathetic 'example of a learning object' called, "Give Me
> > > a Brake" which for me appears broken.  Give me a break, indeed.
> > >
> > > Do have a look at your taxes:
> > http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au
> > >
> > > And, even funnier? is what "The Le at rning Federation Steering Group
> > > write about themselves this month, whilst pondering their own future
> > as
> > > their money runs out in 2005 ,,,
> > >
> > > <quote> 3.1. Demand
> > > In establishing the Initiative, Ministers were providing leadership
> > about
> > > the direction of mainstream schooling, rather than responding to
> > demand
> > > for online content. The Initiative was to meet Ministers' demands
> > for a
> > > schooling sector more oriented to a digital, innovation-directed
> > future.
> > > The Le at rning Federation was to provide high quality online content
> > that
> > > schools would find so useful that teachers would demand more ..
> > </quote>
> > >
> > > What a joke, or, after so long, perhaps a better word might be
> > disgrace.
> > >
> > > One certainly hopes the various Ministers of Education are not
> > pleased.
> > >
> > > Forgive my bluntness, but this is our tax dollars being thoroughly
> > wasted
> > >
> > > Regards all ...
> > > Stephen Loosley
> > > Melburbs, Australia
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > oz-teachers mailing list
> > > oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
> > > http://lists.rite.ed.qut.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/oz-teachers
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> > 
> 
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> 
> 

Bronwyn Stuckey
RITE & OTN Project Officer
School of Maths Science & Technology Education
Queensland University of Technology
ph +617 3864 5517
b.stuckey at qut.edu.au