What surprised me the most reading Weller\u2019s (2020) first chapters were probably the ones about attempts at standardization. I started my apprenticeship in Information Technology back in 2002 and, while already being an aficionado, I had no idea what it truly was about, even less in ed tech to say the least. More than 20 years later, reading about e-learning standards for the first time, it immediately appeared to me that this concept was unlikely to endure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Weller (2020) mentioned in Chapter 7 about learning objects as well as some of my peers in their blog post (Goerzen, 2026), the messy nature of education poses an inherent challenge to attempts to standardize something that is meant to be constantly redefined and reshaped. Learners, contexts and pedagogies keep shifting, and a standard frozen at a given point in time can hardly keep up with that perpetual movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This tension is not unique to education either: as Weller (2020) also points out, parallels can be drawn with software programming. Back in my apprenticeship days, we were told that Unified Modeling Language (UML) was the standard for modeling software. Many development tools and technologies have tried to create standards and references to be adopted by all and, while some of them have succeeded partially for some periods, they would often end up being replaced with new technologies or methodologies. Perhaps this has to do with human nature being attracted to the shiny new things. Or perhaps standards were never meant to be permanent in the first place: they act as temporary scaffolding, useful while a field finds its footing, before being dismantled and rebuilt. Seen that way, their impermanence is less a failure than a feature \u2014 even if nobody would have sold UML to us quite that way back in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Transparency statement : AI assistance was used for grammar checking, phrasing, and final language polish.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech<\/em>. Athabasca University Press. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.15215\/aupress\/9781771993050.01<\/a> What surprised me the most reading Weller\u2019s (2020) first chapters were probably the ones about attempts at standardization. I started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru319\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Goerzen, R. (2026, April 11). Curriculum design is messy. Ron’s Blog<\/em>.
https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru313\/curriculum-design-is-messy\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"