Educational modelling language: modelling reusable, interoperable, rich and personalised units of learning

Abstract

Nowadays there is a huge demand for flexible, independent learning without the constraints of time and place. Various trends in the field of education and training are the bases for the development of new technologies for education. This article describes the development of a learning technology specification, which supports these new demands for learning challenging the new technological possibilities. This specification is named Educational Modelling Language (EML) and is developed by the Open University of the Netherlands.

Unravelling the dynamics of instructional practice

“…A common metaphor of a learning design was a music notation which contains enough information to convey musical ideas from one to another over time and space [16]. Extensive research has been conducted focusing on technological implementations of LD such as the Educational Modelling Language (EML) [29], the SoURCE project [31], the Australian Universities Teaching Council (AUTC) LD project [1], and the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) [14]. While the early work in LD have focused on transferring the design for learning from implicit to explicit, the relationship between LD and the actual learners' response has been not fully understood.…”

Learning Design, Social Ontology and Unintended Functionalism in Education Projects

“…Aiming to bring technological and pedagogical innovations closer to-hand for teachers across Europe, ITEC has sought to transform the context of teaching and learning in the hope that the agency of teachers will follow. Inspired both by the discourse on Learning Design (Koper, 2004;Laurillard, 2012) and by thinking about new opportunities for personalisation of learning through initiatives like the Personal Learning Environment (Johnson and Liber, 2008), ITEC's vision encompassed greater personalisation and technological control by learners, coordinated with an infrastructure which would facilitate large-scale piloting and evaluation of educational 'scenarios'. Whilst it has raised awareness of technology across Europe, allowing many teachers to experiment with different kinds of pedagogy (particularly inquiry-based, classroom flipping, etc), measured against its ambition to create a sustainable technological infrastructure to support 'the classroom of the future', ITEC (like so many other projects before it) has largely failed.…”

Open Source and Open Standards

“…The development and use of the open standard IMS Learning Design (IMSLD, 2003;Koper & Olivier, 2004;Koper & Tattersall, 2005) This model is specified as a UML class model and is slightly adapted from the EML model that has been developed by studying and abstracting different instructional design approaches (Koper & Manderveld, 2004). It was tested, discussed and adapted in different situations using different technologies (Tattersall, Vogten, & Hermans, 2005;Van Es & Koper, 2005), and this process still goes on, although a first stable release of the open specification was reached after five years of work (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002).…”