I ran four workshops this week for the OU Learning Design project. My colleague Grainne Conole had prepared the slides and done four the previous week, so I can't take any credit for the sessions being well structured. We have been using the Compendium tool develop by KMI as a means of eliciting and representing learning designs. We added in an LD icon set, with icons for activity, task, role, VLE tool, resource, output and assignment.
We got attendees to play with this tool, and I was surprised at how well received it was. There is always a danger when giving people a prototype tool that they get mired in small usability details and the bigger picture gets lost. But the reverse happened and people really got the point of a learning design approach by playing with the tool.
Here are some of the general responses from the workshops:
- Using the tool helped generate discussion and get consensus.
- It helped surface hidden complexity in some activities.
- It made users consider the whole range of support, tools and assets.
- It suggested using new technologies to some people.
There was general support for the project, and our next step is to build up the knowledge base, so that we can bridge the gap between pedagogy and technology. We have lots of case studies that we're going to populate it with.
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