Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
– Winston Churchill
To understand where we are and where we want to go, we must know where we have been and how we got here. To help answer these questions, Martin Weller’s book, 25 Years of Ed Tech, provides an exciting and nostalgic retrospective on the influence of technology in learning, specifically in digital learning environments.
The first eight chapters cover the years 1994 to 2001, expanding from the advent of bulletin boards to digital learning standards we have come to know, such as the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). In this article, I highlight key elements that stood out to me through these eight years and still impact the industry today, two decades later.
User Experience
Technology is often adopted when its complexity and accessibility suit the needs of the masses. As a user experience researcher focusing on the ease of use of software applications, I observed a that this pattern holds true in the first few chapters. Regarding bulletin boards, Weller (2020) states that it was the removal of technical barriers that allowed bulletin boards to become widely adopted (Chapter 1, para. 7). Weller also highlights that the simplicity of HTML made the internet more accessible, despite Unix enthusiasts being able to push the technology further through the command line. “Good enough” often wins out (Weller, 2020, Chapter 2, para. 7). Expanding on this pattern of user experience driving technology adoption, Weller states that computer-mediated communication (CMC) was adopted mainly due to the shift from text-based systems to graphical user interfaces (Weller, 2020, Chapter 3, para. 2). This pattern suggests that user experience is a precursor to the mass adoption of technology. To achieve broad adoption of technology, it often needs to provide an easy-to-use interface or minimize complexity in its adoption. I expect to see this pattern reoccur in future chapters.
Learning Objects and Metadata
Although a simple concept, metadata, which is the application of applying textual information to digital artifacts to aid discovery in digital spaces is both complex and challenging to standardize. Weller (2020, Chapter 7) highlights that the learning industry, inspired by object-oriented programming, aims to create granular learning content that can be shared across multiple environments, courses, and industries. To achieve the adoption of learning objects, these objects require metadata. Weller highlights that the learning industry has made numerous attempts to define metadata standards to provide a consistent way to store and locate these objects. However, these attempts have failed due to disagreements over terminology, the overhead involved, and the application of data (potentially a user experience issue). Examples of these failed initiatives include the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) and the United Kingdom Learning Object Core (UK LO CORE).
Weller offers the perspective that the metadata strategy might have succeeded, pointing to the existence of learning services like Khan Academy. However, these services represent isolated learning solutions and do not provide a universal sharing system beyond direct hyperlinking to content on their servers. I am currently working on implementing the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Draft Standard for Learning Metadata Terms, and I think that learning about these past failures is a concern. I plan to investigate the challenges faced by these previous standards to avoid repeating the same mistakes two decades later.
Conclusion
I am excited to continue reading about the 25 years of educational technology. It has been a great walk down memory lane and has highlighted the efforts of professionals who came before me. Learning objects and the metadata that facilitate their discovery are prominent topics in the industry today, potentially due to the advent of xAPI, which enables the integration of learning objects and student performance tracking. I am eager to gain deeper insights into the challenges surrounding learning objects, metadata, and other technologies as I continue through the remaining twenty years covered in the book.
References
Medical Confidence. (2023, April 19). “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – Winston Churchill. Medical Confidence. https://www.medicalconfidence.com/blog/those-that-fail-to-learn-from-history-are-doomed-to-repeat-it-winston-churchill/
OpenAI. (2024). Old technology frustration, modern technology joy, evolution of learning tools.. https://chat.openai.com/
Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. Athabasca University Press. https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/e69021f2-91b6-4ca4-9d0b-81d3e9748707
Hey Allie,
Nice blog post. I too really enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
I agree that user experience is vital to the success of the technologies that have stuck-it-out, and continued to evolve in education through the years. I’d imagine the “user” or student experience is just as vital on the pedagogical side, to successfully be able to learn with the digital materials used, as well. I wonder how often good Ed-tech items may have died an early death, due to poor pedagogical methods, having negative effects on the student’s engagement?
That’s a great thought/consideration. It’s one thing for tech to fail due to its complexity, but what are some cases where tech failed because it did not provide the learning outcomes many expected of it? I’ll give this some thought.