Dai Griffiths <D.E.Griffiths@bolton.ac.uk>

Institute for Educational Cybernetics

D4L, 20th May 2008, Manchester

A new generation of Learning Design tools

The TENCompetence project

• 4-year EU Integrated IST-TEL project • Led by Rob Koper of OUNL, one of the

main architects of IMS LD• Developing “ technical and organisational

infrastructure for lifelong competence development”

• Open source, standards and interoperability specifications compliant

The “C” word• In the TENCompetence project

competence:– is not a thing in the head– is related to a niche– can’t be observed directly– is a disposition of an actor (individual, team,

organisation)– is identified and defined in a community of

practiceSee Cheetham & Chivers (2005) Professions, Competence and Informal Learning

So… learning is someone saying something about someone

• TENCompetence is a framework for those conversations, and relates them together

• Including “How do I learn to…?”• The conversations need to bridge social

and organisational contexts (HE, KM, HRM…)

• The structure should constrain learning or teaching processes as little as possible

What spaces will be used for conversations about learning?

• Threads which could converge?• Social applications on the web

• PLE ideas

• Mash-ups

• eFramework

• Competence frameworks

In the context of Institutional pedagogic & demographic change

• Infrastructure should not be tied to the current structures of institutions

• Degrees from a single institution?

• Accreditation organisations?

• Private universities and tutors?

• Libraries and classrooms?

• An open infrastructure should at least allow us to experiment with alternatives

This context suggests that…• We need shared models and

specifications for learning activities• IMS LD is not an act of faith, but also

should not be dismissed • It is hard to sort out the limitations of

implementations from limitations of the specification

• Our development is seeing how far we can push the spec

Often we just want access to information and suggestions

• Simple sequences of learning resources and activity descriptions

• In the context of a community and a competence development objective

• No cohorts, no teacher intervention• So no need for a separate runtime phase• TENCompetence provides this

If we need something more…

– Find, choose and adapt learning activities– With an explicit model which we can share– Infrastructure to mediate and coordinate

sophisticated learning activities for learners & teacher

– Open Source applications to edit them

• Then TENCompetence uses Learning Design

Simple web based editor / runtime for teachers. Will export to IMS LD (under development)

Wookie widget layer provides services. Allocates groups to tools in learning context; & provides flexible channel. Not exclusively LD.

ReCourse LD Editor v1.5 Successor to Reload LD editor

(level A editing, B & C file support)

Plug-ins for ReCourse provided integrated workflow

• OpenDocument.net repository – Browse and upload UOLs, parses manifest

• UOL Publisher– Replaces CLICC

• Widget services authoring• Editor for subset of QTI

– (under development, available soon)

Linking UOLs with the wider context

• Work in TENComptetence underway• Aligning objectives in PDP with learning

objectives in UOL• Advertising available runs of UOLs• Returning results of runs to the Personal

Competence Manager• Many identity and privacy issues, but we

think that this can be handled

Useful links• All TENCompetence downloads

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tencompetence/

• Info (and friendly links to downloads)– ReCourse LD Editor http://www.tencompetence.org/ldauthor/

– Wookie Widget server http://www.tencompetence.org/ldruntime/

• Web editor videos http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9E92FF44A85CCBFE

• Demos– Web editor: http://145.20.173.186/design.php

– Wookie widget server: coming soon, watch www.tencompetence.org…

• Support forums: http://www.tencompetence.org/forum/

Your participation is welcome!

• The TENCompetence foundation has been established– A vehicle which maintain the code and

coordinating its use

• More informally we would like to share– pilots, developing software, working on

specifications, future projects…– talk to me or Chris Kew, or visit

www.tencompetence.org

The Web editor

• http://145.20.173.186/design.php• The ideas will be familiar to some of you

– Wollongong verbs– 8 Learning Events Model

Demos of ReCourse and Widgets