E-learning resources have a number of advantages over book and paper based resources. In this article, I’m going to write about one in particular: the importance of being able to edit the resources that you use with learners. This article focuses directly on resources for learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) as they provide very clear examples of why it is important.

Why would you want to edit learning resources?

Apart from obvious reasons, such as changes to the syllabus, correcting typos, correcting wrong answers and other such errors, it’s a great advantage to be able to edit resources to bring them into line with other resources to create more coherent, better targeted courses.

Frequently, e-learning resources are used in combination with classroom, task-based and other types of learning activities, otherwise known as blended learning. Under these circumstances, it’s desirable to limit the scope of what learners are exposed to in order to help them focus on the core curriculum. In the case of EFL/ESL lessons, you’ll most probably have more success presenting and practising the same 8-12 new words and expressions in the classroom and on-line than if you present one set of vocabulary in class and another, different set on-line.

Good resources, inappropriate content

There are plenty of very good and very effective photocopiable resources and self-study materials for EFL/ESL learners to learn and practise with. The difficulty arises when we try to construct a coherent, well focused lesson or course with a core syllabus using these resources. For example, if a lesson covers comparative and superlative adjectives and transport and travel vocabulary but the photocopiable resources for adjectives cover lifestyle vocabulary, and the resources for transport and travel vocabulary cover the Present Perfect, then we’ve just doubled the amount of new language being simultaneously presented and practised. For many students, having to grapple with two lexical areas of vocabulary and two areas of structure and use at the same time can be overwhelming and confusing.

Lesson objectives: Grammar = comparative & superlative adjectives, Vocabulary = transport & travel

• Resource #1: Grammar = comparative & superlative adjectives, Vocabulary = lifestyle & leisure
• Resource #2: Grammar = Present Perfect simple, Vocabulary = transport & travel

Inconsistencies across different resources

Futhermore, for any language that we expect the learner to remember and use correctly, a certain amount of practice and repetition is necessary so we need a series of different types of activity to recycle the target language. Photocopiable resources and self-study materials tend to cover each language point once, therefore  learners usually need more resources from other sources. If we use a photocopiable resource in one instance to learn and practise vocabulary in a particular lexical area, such as transport and travel for Intermediate students, the specific vocabulary can vary from resource to resource since photocopiable resource authors often have different ideas about what the vocabulary for a particular lexical area for a particular level of English should be. This can result in learners being expected to learn more new vocabulary than is reasonable in a given length of time.

If we were to add yet more resources, the amount of language presented quickly becomes unmanageable. Currently, a lot of teachers spend a lot of time adapting or rewriting resources because they are inappropriate for the language points that they are teaching.

How does e-learning have an advantage over other resources?

Books and worksheets, our most familiar learning resources, are published in what’s known as hard copy, in other words, on paper. Unless we get heavily involved with Tippex, scissors, tape and glue, these resources are essentially uneditable. E-learning resources differ from this in that they are stored electronically and can be easily copied and edited, so having your texts and pictures in MS Word or Open Office Writer documents means that you can copy and paste any of them into a new resource and edit them and publish them as necessary. With Google Docs you have the added bonus of having the resources available in one easily accessible place.

To avoid copyright infringement issues, I recommend only using your own original content or Creative Commons content (Wikipedia, Flickr, Wikimedia, etc.) for this and properly acknowledging all authors and contributors.

Data driven learning resources and learning interactions

Electronic documents are somewhat more convenient than hard copy resources but, of course, computers and software are capable of making our lives much easier by generating learning resources that are multimedia and interactive and hosting them on the Internet where learners can have access to them anytime and from anywhere they have an Internet connection. Here, I’m talking about dynamic learning resources supported by learning management systems.

Dynamic simply means that the resources are generated by software automatically so all we need is the resource content, i.e. text, questions, answers, images, audio and sometimes video, in an appropriate format. An e-learning application, usually Flash or Java based, can read the learning resource content and create a unique learning resource. In the world of e-learning this is called a learning interaction. A learning interaction can be as simple as a page of text and images or it can be a highly interactive grammar game or self-correcting dictation.

So we have:

learning resource content (data) + e-learning application (software) = learning interaction (resource)

The beauty of this “data-driven” model is that we only have to author the learning resource content once. After that, we can use it, dynamically (i.e. automatically) to create any number of different learning interactions. All we have to do is substitute different e-learning applications that can read the learning resource content. E-learning applications can be word searches, dictations, multiple matching, multiple choice, true or false, short answer, gap-fill, written answer dialogues, spoken answer dialogues, listening activities, shadow reading activities, subtitled video, tests, etc. From just one set of learning resource content, it’s possible to create any number of learning interactions that focus on developing learners’ skills and knowledge. An added advantage of this model is that it encourages learning resource designers to recycle language more frequently thereby ensuring that learners get adequate practice. You can see an example of this on the demo course on my learning management system (login as a guest). On the demo course, the learning interactions “Word Search”, “Listen and Select” and “Look and Describe” all share the same learning content. If we edit the learning content, the changes are immediately reflected in all the learning interactions. We can also create a new set of learning content by copying and the original set and editing it to suit another purpose. Again, with this new set of learning content, we can dynamically create any number of different learning interactions.

This idea of keeping learning content and learning applications separate and combining them to create learning interactions can reduce course content development time dramatically. With a relatively small library of learning applications and learning content, it’s possible to provide hours of effective, engaging, varied, high-quality learning interactions in a very short space of time. It’s also very easy to copy and edit entire courses to re-purpose the learning content. So here we have an easy way to create lots of appropriate, well targeted and effective e-learning resources!

A quick note about SCORM

The Shareable Content Object Reference Model is an e-learning standard initially commissioned by the US military in 1999. It’s very different to dynamically driven e-learning resources. It’s not easily editable as it requires each learning interaction to be a self-contained package, i.e. they don’t share the same source of learning content, so in order to edit the learning content of a set of interactions, it’s necessary to edit and re-author all the interactions individually which is quite a complicated and involved task. I wrote an earlier article about the pros and cons of SCORM on this blog.

With e-learning becoming more widely adopted by schools, universities, governments and private companies for their educational and training needs, SCORM has become the de facto format. But should we really be adopting it?

What is SCORM?

SCORM, or the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, is a widely used web standard for e-learning interactions. It promises cross-platform compatibility and a homogenised approach to deploying e-learning resources but at what cost?

What are the advantages of SCORM?

• A wide range of 3rd party support
• You can buy ready made e-learning interactions
• Supported by most Learning Management Systems or Virtual Learning Environments
• Learning interactions can, in theory at least, be transferred from one LMS/VLE to another

Since SCORM was adopted by the US military in 2004, a number of agencies, consultancies and organisations have sprung up to offer SCORM resources and support, including software packages for authoring and packaging learning interactions.  Additionally, most Learning Management Systems or Virtual Learning Environments can deploy SCORM compliant learning interaction packages and if, at some point in the future, you decide to change to another Learning Management System, you can transfer them… well, in theory (see disadvantages).

What are the disadvantages of SCORM?

• Limited selection of types of activities
• Inherently insecure
• Difficult to edit and correct ‘typos’
• Very complicated format
• ‘Compliance’ doesn’t guarantee that learning interactions will function correctly on your LMS/VLE
• Learning interactions use a lot of Internet bandwidth and server storage space
• Learning interactions take a long time to download

Firstly, I consider the main drawback to SCORM being it’s limited selection of types of activities. They are true or false, multiple choice, fill in the gap and multiple matching and a few variations of these types. As a teacher, I don’t expect my students to learn a great deal from such activities and I don’t think that they’re a very effective way of testing learners’ abilities or knowledge either.

Secondly, SCORM is inherently insecure. It requires the learner’s computer to store all the data related to a particular learning interaction, including the answers, usually in the web browser cache. It’s pretty easy to go and find the directory where those files are stored and look at them. On a Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system, using Internet Explorer, you can change Tools… > Folder Options > View > Hidden files and folders > Show hidden files and folders and you’ll find the browser cache at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\, and  Firefox provides a direct link to its browser cache.

Another security concern is that Adobe Flash abandoned support for SCORM after Flash MX 2004, also known as Flash (version) 6. It’s possible to author SCORM compliant e-learning applications in subsequent versions of Flash but they must be published in the MX 2004 legacy format. Likewise, the majority of software packages for authoring Flash e-learning applications for SCORM publish them in older, pre-Flash 9, formats. In the last few years, a number of high-level security threats have been identified in pre-Flash 9 files, allowing attackers to inject malicious software into users’ computers among other things. Read this article at Adobe.com for more details.

Another thing is, we’re all human beings and we all make mistakes. It’s frustrating when you think you’ve finished authoring a learning interaction and deploy it on a Learning Management System or Virtual Learning Environment and test it only to find that you’ve misspelled a few words, made a few typos or something similar (or your proofreaders have missed something). Most web-authoring tools allow you to easily go back and correct those inevitable mistakes by simply typing in the correct spelling, punctuation, etc. This isn’t so with SCORM. You’re required to re-author the learning interaction package and re-deploy it.

It also isn’t possible for SCORM packages, despite the word ’sharable’ in the name (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) , to share resources. If you have images, audio recordings or videos that are used by all or several learning interactions, SCORM requires you to deploy copies of those media files in each and every package. This can result in a Learning Management System or Virtual Learning Environment using up many times more Internet bandwidth and server storage space than is necessary and also make updating those resources and long and tedious process. Basically, someone has to re-author every single learning interaction package. Perhaps that would be a job reserved for the “new employee” in the department?

In terms of how cost effective SCORM can be, I conducted an informal survey with administrators and teachers who use SCORM and I discovered that it was quite normal to deploy learning interaction packages of around 80MB – 100MB, the smallest being 15MB,  giving download times of anywhere up to 4 minutes before the learner can start the learning interaction (The average YouTube.com video is around 10MB and, of course, runs on Google’s impressive global data infrastructure – Watch the progress bar to see how long it takes to download). Additionally, Internet bandwidth and storage space on servers are expensive and should be kept as low as possible. If you multiply 80MB by the number packages on a course and by the number of students downloading them, you can see that bandwidth usage, in particular, can get pretty high. Such large file sizes and high bandwidth usage are, in my opinion, unnecessary and wasteful.

Finally, SCORM is incredibly complicated and difficult to understand. Here’s an extract from a user’s post on Moodle SCORM support forums:

“Right now I’m trying to figure out how to do basic SCORM compliancy (e.g. I have an authorware file with pictures of my cats and their names, buttons are there, one even has a quiz question)  How do I go from there to saying “Haha!  This is SCORM Compliant!  These are the steps to follow to ensure our product complies and we get paid!”  I’ve downloaded the tools off of adlnet, and I’m driving myself crazy at this point.”

And the reply:

“I feel your pain. I spent the last two years hoping for such a solution, and the bottom line is that the solution only exists by pouring over the documentation on the ADLnet.org site. Here’s the nutshell, but if you do a project for the navy with only this information, you will run into trouble. The best I can do for you is point you to ADLs “SCORM 2004 Conformance Requirements” pdf file and offer my consulting services. I lived on the ADL product downloads page while I was learning to develop for the SCORM.”

I think that with the amount of time and resources an organisation could spend on adopting SCORM and providing IT support, it might in some cases, be more cost effective to develop proprietry frameworks for authoring and deploying e-learning interactions. It would certainly be less time-consuming to use one of the many alternatives available.

To sum up…

So initially, SCORM seems to offer a great deal in terms of interoperability and support but there are less than obvious drawbacks that can increase costs in terms of bandwidth and IT support. Furthermore it can present serious security risks to your Internet/Intranet servers and users’ computers.

There are better technologies available which are more secure, cheaper to install and maintain and more efficient. For example, it’s possible to deploy all the activities specified by SCORM with Moodle’s native Quiz module which is database driven, which means it’s relatively easy to edit and update,  and relatively efficient. There are also faster, smarter, more efficient technologies on the horizon with Flash, the Flex Framework and Adobe AIR (all version 9 or above) being the platforms of choice for the e-learning applications of the future.