Week 2 Comment #1 on Abbie Toy's Blog

@Abbie,

I found this article on ADL and SCORM to be very interesting. This is the way that we are moving, and I think it's great! Technology such as this is a very cost effective way to manage Global Collaboration. The fact that this can be utilized anywhere at anytime is also so important to the effectiveness of ADL. I visited the link your provided for ADL and I noticed that there are no membership costs or fees in order to be involved with ADL or SCORM. Simply become a registered user and you can stay up to date on events, articles and the latest information from adlnet.gov. Of course as you mentioned as with most things there are still bugs and improvement will be a continuos process, Thanks for sharing!

Wk2 Reading Activity 7 - ADL/Standards/SCORM

What do you get when the government, industry, and academia collaborate to provide education and training worldwide in the most interactive, cost effective, and individualized way you can imagine? You get the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) Initiative! This is a plan to connect learning management systems by creating tools and content based on standards that allows for use on multiple LMS platforms. You can check out their website here.

The ADL website describes the content to "standardize and modernize the delivery of training and education" as SCORM. SCORM stands for shareable content object reference model, which was developed by the ADL Initiative team. The website also outlines the requirements for SCORM: interoperability, accessibility, reusability, durability, maintainability, and adaptability. SCORM has to be able to work on many different learning management systems and be based on guidelines, specifications, and standards. SCORM is made up of metadata, which specifies language and level of difficulty, contains content objects, and allows for searches within the content.

All in all, the ADL is working hard to make online learning more accessible and easy-to-use. They created SCORM so that content can be standards-based and the best that it can be! Although I read some great things about SCORM, I also found that like any program, there are some bugs to be worked out. I truly think this is only the beginning of the ADL Initiative, and as changes are made and more ideas are sorted out - some amazing technology is going to prevail! Downes (2000) notes that the "ADL worked closely with another important online learning initiative, the Instructional Management Systems Project in the development of a standard for learning objects (a learning object is a self-contained package of educational material)." The more ADL works with others in improving the content, the more exciting online education becomes!

References

Downes, S. (2000). Advanced distributed learning network. The Technology Source. Retrieved from http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1034