Forum Getting Started: Re: What do people use for authoring sequences?

By: James Dalziel

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Yes, I think the idea of educational patterns / sequence templates has lots to recommend it. I also think we have some challenges with our language here, as we may mean different things when we use the words "pattern", "template", and "activity sequence".

Here are two different takes on these issues:

(1) I recently co-authored a paper with Patrick McAndrew and Peter Goodyear on this topic called "Patterns, designs and activities: unifying descriptions of learning structures". You can find a pre-print version at
http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/getfile.cfm?documentfileid=6000

This paper touches many issues in this field, and includes a comparison of patterns, (IMS LD) designs and (LAMS) activity sequences. One of the main things I learned from working on this paper was just how different a traditional Alexandrian pattern is to a LAMS sequence - a pattern (in this context) does not implement everything ready to be used, rather it should provide advice and direction, but still make demands on the teacher for a "creative leap" in applying the principles of the pattern to creating something that can be used in his/her local context.

In the case of a typical LAMS sequence, it is ready for the teacher to implement immediately with no further work other than "starting" it with a chosen class. Of course, a LAMS sequence like this can also be adapted to suit special local needs, or changed significantly to create a new sequence, but its most striking feature is that it is ready to use without first requiring a "creative step". I suspect in the future we will see both positive outcomes (eg, ease of sharing good practice) and negative outcomes (eg, teachers just running a sequence without really thinking about its benefits in their local context) from this feature.

Further, I think we can build something between these two - a generic activity sequence where the activity flow is finalised but the "content" of each activity needs to be edited to apply it to a specific topic - see below.

(2) I've just uploaded a new sequence to the Public area - called "Template - What is [insert topic]" - see http://www.lamscommunity.org/lamscentral/sequence?seq%5fid=16699

I created this sequence by making a generic version of an existing topic specific sequence - "What is Psychology?" - see http://www.lamscommunity.org/lamscentral/sequence?seq%5fid=10489

But I didn't simply delete the word "Psychology" and related psychology information. I've also added advice on how to edit the sequence to create a good set of learning activities for reflecting on preconceptions about new subject areas. This advice is contained in both the sequence itself and in an accompanying advice file - see http://www.lamscommunity.org/lamscentral/files/TemplateAdvice_Whatis%5Binsert_topic%5D.doc?file%5frev%5fid=16701

I'm looking forward to feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of this new kind of LAMS "Template" sequence (you can post comments at the bottom of http://www.lamscommunity.org/lamscentral/sequence?seq%5fid=16699). On the one hand, the Template may be used much more widely than "What is Psychology?" because it can be applied to many different topic areas (and the resulting adaptations could be shared via the sequence repository). On the other hand, it requires teachers to edit it first and adapt it to their chosen topic - so unlike "What is Psychology?", it requires work on the part of authors prior to use.

I'm hoping that both kinds of LAMS sequences (Templates and "traditional" prepared topic sequences) will be useful, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a decade of research ahead in teasing out all the pedagogical implications of each approach.

Posted by James Dalziel

By: Karen Baskett

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I was training a group of teachers in New Zealand recently and introduced the concept of "templates" for authoring in LAMS. They found this very useful and saw immediate relevance.

For example, I have uploaded a sequence called "NZ Govt - Elections" in the Public folder on this site. This is a jigsaw learning activity that has groups of students working on different aspects of the elections, but then coming together as a class again to share their knowledge. Immediately one of the teachers used a similar design on the topic of "leadership" and had groups investigate different well known leaders.

Posted by Karen Baskett

By: James Dalziel

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One other comment - patterns are now common in software development, although they are somewhat different to Alexander's original concepts. It would be interesting to compare the evolution of software patterns to educational patterns (/Learning Designs/activity sequences/etc).

Posted by James Dalziel

By: James Dalziel

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I forgot to mention another take on patterns/templates - LAMS Author Xpress. This is an idea we've been playing around with internally, but haven't released. You can see early screenshots in slides 18-22 at http://www.lamsfoundation.org/CD/html/resources/presentations/LAMS.JISCeval.AstonUniConference.Jan05.ppt

Here's a summary of how Author Xpress works:

Step 1: Choose a type of delivery mode (eg, synchronous, asynchronous, mixed, single-learner).

Step 2: Choose from a set of 5-7 template sequences that have been pre-built to suit your chosen style of delivery.

Step 3: Use a special authoring approach which shows all activities on one webpage, but with only the key content fields needed to finish the template (NB: the rest of the fields and settings are already done as part of the template).

Step 4: Save and run it (or open in full authoring to edit those fields/settings not shown).

The concept is to support rapid authoring either for new users, or those who are happy to go with the existing template settings and edit jut the key content fields.

There are some similarities between this approach and my suggestion (2) above, except that (so far) we don't provide advice on how to edit the content for Author Xpress; and the Author Xpress decision process helps teachers choose a sequence to suit their context, rather than expecting teachers to search through the whole LAMS sequence repository to find something appropriate.

I expect we'll probably "hard code" Author Xpress in the first instance, but eventually I'd like to see an editor for Author Xpress itself, so anyone could create their own Author Xpress decision process (potentially built on different decisions) and using their own templates. This would allow for a wide range of decision processes and sets of templates, each with their own pedagogical assumptions, but all built on a common technical environment.

Posted by James Dalziel