From Seneca College in Ontario, Canada comes a new Learning Objects Portal Page:
There are quite a few places inside here, 9 sections: Information, Resources, Repositories, Tools, Best Practices, Issues, Activities, Who’s Who, and About this site. Each one of these leads deeper and deeper. Additions include a project blog, an accessible version, and a discussion board link (but yuck! there are so many more 21st century board tools than WWWBoard, which is so, like 1996…)
Fun additons include things such as a learning object scavenger hunt or the Canadian “Who’s Who in Learning Objects.
It is refreshing to see some ideas and content devoted to more than the objects themself or meta data or just search tools… but still I find something lacking that makes it difficult to see how the objects pull together into something meaningful.
I think the desired future will be here when learning objects themselves are not the focus, when they are transparent, invisible. When we focus on objects we miss the target.
<tiphat>Tip of the blog hat to George at elearnspace</tiphat>
Alan, I agree with you about the focus on learning objects being misplaced. That’s like saying “we need to focus on web pages” – they are meaningless unless used in a context, by a community, etc…
The current focus on LOs is a necessary baby step. I’ll be glad when we’re able to move past it.