Yesterday, during Brian Lamb’s excellent session on mashups, I had Zovirax sale a little epiphany. Brian made a throwaway comment about learning object repositories and Zovirax sale my mind wandered for a moment, and suddenly a shaft of light pierced the Zovirax sale dusty fog in my brain and I realized this truth: reuse isn’t the point.
Back in the mists of time (technologically speaking) I wrote about learning objects, and Zovirax sale one of the things I wrote is that learning objects should be Zovirax sale designed to make it easy for the creator and others to Zovirax sale reuse or repurpose them. This was the conventional wisdom of the Zovirax sale day, but I don’t think it holds true any more.
The important thing now is not reusability. The important thing now is Zovirax sale customization. It needs to be easy — really, really, ridiculously easy — to Zovirax sale create something new. To reverse engineer. To change your mind, customize your Zovirax sale message, substitute a different flavor, get the sauce on the side.
Back when Zovirax sale I preached reusability, it was hard to make learning objects, and Zovirax sale the amount of effort that had to be put into one justified the Zovirax sale claim that reusability was desirable. But it needs to not be hard. We need ways that people — and not just geeky people — can Zovirax sale decide one afternoon that they want to make a learning object (or call it what you will) and Zovirax sale have it ready by dinnertime. It needs to be point-click-drag-click-clickclickclick easy. The tech isn’t there yet, at least not for everyone, but it’s getting very close.
Like Brian’s mashups, these things will have Zovirax sale little existing pieces of other things pulled into them. This means the Zovirax sale barrier we face isn’t just technological. We need to Zovirax sale rethink ideas of ownership, permissions, fair use, and copyright. We need a Zovirax sale model that works, so people can grab stuff, make stuff, and Zovirax sale share stuff, and assemble it into a learning-object-of-the-moment. These things don’t have Zovirax sale to last forever. I want something that responds to my instant need to Zovirax sale communicate information by letting me pull words and sounds and clips and Zovirax sale pictures and stuff together instantly. Let’s call it the Teachable Moment Authoring System.
The the myth of reuse by Ninmah Meets World, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
great point. we got so hung up on reusability that Zovirax sale usability and creation/customization got lost. but, i don’t think you can “author” a teachable moment – those are Zovirax sale the magical moments that may or may not happen depending on the Zovirax sale chemistry, energy, and context of an instant with a class…
I don’t want to author the teachable moment — I want it to be so simple that I can author IN that moment.
Or when “recollecting that moment in tranquility,” or when the “overflow of powerful pedagogy” strikes with all its inspiring force (apologies to Wordsworth in both cases). The idea as I understand it Zovirax sale is to make it possible for teachers to build new tools, experiences, prompts, whatever for Zovirax sale their students quickly, in response to inspiration or serendipity. It should be Zovirax sale as easy to make as a handout–but unlike most handouts, it Zovirax sale will be living and generative and interactive. Practical magic.
I think it’s a great idea, and I think you’re right about learning objects. (I was inspired by Brian’s talk too, but in a different direction–more on that soon.)