International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (Jul 2001)
A Critique of Stephen Downes' "Learning Objects": A Chinese perspective
Abstract
This paper by Stephen Downes recommends a way of sharing online teaching/ course materials to accelerate course development and make education more cost-effective. His paper is a review of basic information about learning objects (LOs) and includes examples that illustrate such technical terms as XML and TML. His paper, however, does not identify several important issues such as: a) the level of granularity of learning objects; b) selection and integration of learning objects in an appropriate way to form higher level units of study; c) training of professors in the use of learning objects; d) appropriate use of metadata to facilitate composition of higher level units; and e) the potential of computer agents to facilitate the dynamic composition of personalized lessons. An unorganized aggregate of learning objects simply does not constitute a course. In order to create a properly designed final course, student and instructor interaction must be built in.
