Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)

• Don’t Believe the Hype. Learning Management Systems Are Alive and Well — Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media

  tags: learning management systems LMS

• CMI-5 and the Experience API - Experience API

  tags: experience api cmi5 xapi scorm AICC

• SCORM Vs Tin Can API: What’s The Difference? - eLearning Industry

  tags: scorm tin-can API

• SCORM - cmi5 is live in SCORM Cloud » SCORM - 

  tags: scorm cloud AICC cmi5

  • cmi5 is technically a profile of xAPI which means it piggy backs on top of things already well defined in xAPI, but adds specificity in others. For cmi5, this means that certain xAPI statements are required, and launch is handled in a very specific way
  • If content launch is ultimately going to transition from SCORM to xAPI, cmi5’s support for launch will be a requirement.

• SCORM and Moodle: A Long Relationship That May Last Forever | Moodle News

  tags: scorm moodle

  • In 2001, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) first saw the light of day.
  • It gave federal agencies, and organizations in general, the ability to compare and share content across various platforms.
  • From a technical standpoint, SCORM is an XML file that outlines content in a tree-like structure, along with a set of required and optional attributes.
  • Early on, Moodle had the ability to import SCORM packages. All the package needed was an “LMS manifest” XML file at the top following the specification, along with the course content laid out according to the manifest. Multimedia files and reading material are arranged accordingly inside the package, which is a typical ZIP file
  • In the rest of the world, SCORM was losing traction instead of gaining it, which seemed to be the case ever since SCORM 2004.
  • Most perplexing, the space vacated by SCORM wasn’t filled by anybody else, raising the question of whether anyone other than the US DoD really needed a learning specification.
  • Even Moodle, the industry’s archetype for openness, offered SCORM compatibility but never added SCORM-creation abilities.
  • the web 2.0 movement of web-services and 3rd party content accessible through standards such as the IMS Global Learning Tools Interoperability and now Caliper have opened the world of content and activities to Moodle sites and classrooms without the need to transfer files or other information between systems.
  • However, attention to SCORM development in the Moodleverse has dwindled and come to a halt in recent years. The Moodle Tracker includes hundreds of issues about SCORM that haven’t been solved, some dating as far back as 2014.
  • One of SCORM’s worst pitfalls was its complete focus on supply while disregarding demand.
  • But when it came to performance, SCORM had no way to ensure assessment outcomes were similarly standardized.
  • In 2013, recognizing the several issues facing SCORM (including, possibly, brand reputation), and a new technological stage, ADL launched the “Experience API”, or xAPI, a potential SCORM replacement. xAPI came with the appellative of “Tin Can API”, intended by ADL to reflect its “two-way conversation with the community.”
  • Instead of XML, xAPI works in JSON, a newer, simpler, and more flexible format that features the one thing the technical basis for a specification should have: interoperability.
  • While xAPI lets you add a performance profile and use it to automatically track and evaluate the effectiveness of a learning intervention, it offers little help in developing said profiles
  • For all the imperfections the SCORM specification has, xAPI has yet to reach SCORM’s status of standardization.
  • Some see CMI-5 as the next frontier. CMI-5 is a recent “xAPI profile” that brings back some elements from AICC but with added specificity. 
  • makes it unclear whether it makes sense to add CMI-5 and not xAPI compatibility to an LMS.
  • So, with the imminent demise of SCORM having been predicted for years, the need for a better, sounder specification is still out there
  • While ADL and Rustici, a private company, are betting on xAPI, they both also have active projects based on SCORM
  • by way of their “SCORM Cloud” plugin family, which requires a paid subscription to work.

• Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) to spark global renaissance in education through innovation at MIT | MIT News

  • The global collaborative effort will help educators, universities, governments, and companies revolutionize the effectiveness and reach of education, and aims to help prepare people everywhere for a labor market radically altered by technological progress, globalization, and the pursuit of higher living standards around the world
  • opening educational pathways that are currently closed to millions
  • J-WEL will be an anchor entity within MIT’s open education and learning initiatives that are led by MIT Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma.
  • M.S. Vijay Kumar, MIT’s associate dean of digital learning, will serve as J-WEL’s executive director and will work closely with the faculty leads. Faculty will receive J-WEL grants for research related to this initiative
  • Leveraging MIT’s resources, J-WEL will convene a global community of collaborators for sustainable, high-impact transformation in education through research, policy, pedagogy, and practice.
  • new educational tools and methods will be deployed.

• 51 Competencies for Online Instruction (2005)

  tags: competencies Online Teaching instructors

• Online Instructor Teaching Competencies: Literature Review for Quality Matters (2016)

  tags: QM quality matters assurance online teaching pedagogy instructors

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.