Learning About Learning Objects (LALO)

Here is another new learning objects “hub” site (a PHP-Nuke supported site) called Learning About Learning Objects .

I clicked and clicked and clicked trying to find the elusive “About” statement, failing, and found this on a site that seemed to be the prototype:

The process of implementing SDCCD Online to date has highlighted several problems in implementing a distance education program at a community college: Faculty need training that models good distance education, additional support in making the transition to online instructor, and much greater and easier access to online instructional materials they can use to construct their courses. This ˆ¨Community College Faculty OnlineˆÆ project addresses those needs. The project will train faculty in the development of learning objects, train faculty to use them to create online courses, and submit the learning objects to the MERLOT online instructional repository for public access.

“SCCCD” would be the San Diego Community College District. The front page seems to be some sort of RSS/news gathering area, and there are links to “Faculty Objects” (must be learning objects created by faculty, not faculty members as objects!), “Weekly Example” (LO of the Week?), “Learning Object Training” (which seems to be information about this project), “Learning Objects”“Project Overview” (now I can read what this site is about…)

In all of this, as a technology novice faculty member, would I find anything to convince me I can build something meaningful out of these “objects”, it is yet another collection of disjointed things.

In the LO game we are still woefully short-changed and lacking the tools and strategies that would help pull the so-called objects together into something meaningful.

But keep your eyes on the distant horizon… from the west, a lumbering Loxodonta africana may be here to help.