Hey Richard, Working on a Saturday - I hope that they're paying you overtime :-) .
I think you're right. The smart implementation of XML technologies is going to be the future in education. I'm borrowing a citation from Hewletts OER report on page 66, namely the “[k]ey to making the whole more than the sum of the parts is to create some XML” which you can download here. This pluggable technology is very exiting.
My concerns are social ones. Pluggable implies that you must plug the technology in somewhere. So the next questions are: - Where do I plug this in? Do I need permission to plug something in? What if I don't like the socket where I'm expected to plug the technology in?
I also think, particularly when focusing on the developing world we are going to see resurgence of client side technologies that have smart ways of linking with server-based technologies through XML. Its going to be interesting to see how this all pans out in the near future.
You're absolutely right that RSS/RDF etc is a grossly underutilised technology in education.
I'm on about the freedom of the teacher to teach -
How many IT policies in teaching organisations restrict downloads of software without some form of external control?
How many teaching organisations lock down desktops?
So it is conceivable in this pluggable environment that the freedoms of educators are restricted to the plugins they can use. “You can use any plugin as long as it fits our socket!” . This would be a tragedy for academic autonomy and the free cultural works movement.
I think that we are facing a new set of challenges - the guise that a free software installation on campus is a manifestation of the organisational commitment to freedom. For example, lets say I plan this big OER project and I embed my resources in Moodle. There is a considerable effort and cost required to reconfigure those resources for another environment. How do we facilitate mass-collaboration using the principles of self organisation in a LMS environment. LMSs were not designed for collaborative authoring. The were designed for teaching. Wiki's were designed for collaborative authoring and are the most mature technologies to achieve this aim. Sure there are challenges associated with a standard wiki text - but I don't know of any LMS that uses a standard authoring syntax. Try and take a course developed in Blackboard and port this to Moodle - you'll see what I mean. The two LMSs have their own pedagogical structure – so it doesn't matter how effective SCORM/IMS packaging is - there is a pedagogical mismatch.
Speaking from experience - I know that many educational organisations are uncomfortable with their content sitting on an open web-server. Why is that? Native (X)HTML is far more efficient than plugging all this stuff into the LMS database. W3C is a mature open standard. We can significantly reduce server load on the LMS by simply referencing free content from the LMS itself. What is the obsession to embed content within the LMS? As you've pointed out - the LMS is an aggregation of tools that facilitate interaction. I sense that there is a “political correctness” among some organisations to say that they're involved with the OER movement - yet they haven't bought into the philosophy. Take a look at the proliferation of non-free content licenses under so-called OER projects!
Don't worry too much about syntax of wiki's - we're going to get this sorted with our Tectonic Shift Think Tank next week :-) . I hope you can help us with a vision statement. We'd love to have you on board as a remote participant.
As always - good post Richard! You're making me earn my “money”. Pity I can't buy you a beer.
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