The background to the paper overviews the importance of the creation of an adaptable context that the learner creates to support and retain their own learning. They note ” It is not about learning design it is all about learning environment design”. By letting learning emerge from rich inquiry, collaboration and publication tools, learners are able to play active roles in the creation and sustenance of their own learning contexts. These skills, the contexts and the products of course do not end when the course LMS site is closed, but rather become life long learning attributes and capacity. Thus the creation of a rich learning environment that the student creates, owns and continuous to build with is the major learning outcome, the specific knowledge domain outcomes are useful but less important outcomes in a life long learning context.

The process began three weeks ago with the course authors drafting and sharing for comment,  a proposed syllabus (using Google docs). In order to maintain consistency each ‘module’ consists of an introduction, 12-15 ‘screens’ of content, a summary, a multiple choice quiz and a list of resources for further exploration. The design model also insists that modules are not cross linked to allow for modular use as learning objects. The Google docs spreadsheet module was employed so the content, and especially the learning outcome of each ‘screen’ is articulated by the author and vetted by the ‘ expert consultant and other members of the development team. Each module is designed to take 60-90 minutes of end user time to complete. Fortunately, Epigeum technicians and media experts will actually create the screens which  (I understand) will make liberal use of video, animation and other multimedia resources. The modules are formatted to meet IMS content packaging standard so that they can ‘eaten up’ and delivered by a variety of LMS (OK make that VLEs, in the UK) delivery systems.

Taylor, J. (2001). The future of learning—learning for the future: Shaping the transition. Proceedings of the 20th ICDE World Congress. Retrieved April 22, 2004, from http://www.fernuni-hagen.de/ICDE/D-2001/final/keynote_speeches/wednesday/taylor_keynote.pdf