Erik Duval has today made a blog post on role of technical standards for Technology Enhanced Learning:
http://erikduval.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/standards-for-technology-enhanced-learning/#comment-227
I have separately commented on his post (moderation pending at time of writing).
This week in EU4ALL we have been wrestling with some of this issues thrown-up when actually populating the metadata for content in our first prototypes.
Both of these have reinforced for me the long held beleif that insuffiecient priority is given to prototype implementation duing standards development. Doing so:
- exposes inconsitencies in the metadata
- reveals ambiguities that arise from different peoples interpretations of the standard
- exposes whether the standard sufficiently supports the desired systems behaviour
- facilitates engagement of stakeholders who are not metadata or technology specialists
On of the challenges of standards development is the time the process takes. There is a significant risk that however well founded the vision was at the start of the process that technical innovation and/or evolution in the practices and busines models of the educational sector will make a standard irrelevant by time it is finally realised. I maintain that by buidling in sufficient prototype development and evalaution iteratively into the standards development process the chance of harmonising the standards development with technical advances and evolution in the educational context is significantly enhanced.
So this is an appeal for “let’s build it and see”.
And then after further progress “let’s build it and see” again!
Cheers,
Martyn
