It was quite an experience to be in a classroom in Otago Polytechnic with the power trio of Sue Bennett, Shirley Agostinho and Lori Lockyer along with a cluster of very obviously experienced curriculum developers and learning designers at #Ascillite2014 in Dunedin, NZ. The workshop, “Learning design techniques and tools,” was a hands-on session in which participants mined a selection of provided sharable learning designs to address learning design challenges of our own making by means of design sketches using a set of basic symbols and notations. After preliminaries, participants paired up for 20 minute design sprints and reported back an array of extremely interesting and creative design representations that addressed some fairly complex design problems.

The history of learning designs as patterns that can be represented in some way and then shared with others either to copy or to use generatively as inspiration for new designs goes back to the early 2000s, when learning object enthusiasts started running into brick walls. I.e., these objects are pretty and all, but how do we string them together into meaningful sequences? And if learning objects are to be more than just simple media resources, how is their implicit learning design to be described using metadata? Many sharable learning design initiatives came and went over that period and it would take more than a quick blog post to recount those stories here. I think many of the initiatives became entangled in debates about learning design models and metadata, and in concurrent efforts to tie learning design representations to complex design tools including those that would produce digital learning pathways with runnable code, that simply weren’t sufficiently usable and nuanced to allow for the types of adaptations that are made when learning designers work generatively off others’ documented designs. A brief overview of learning design issues can be found in the Larnaca Declaration, which was promulgated in 2012. (While “Declaration” seems a little somber for a discussion on learning designs, I do love Larnaca and I can’t think of a better place to proclaim one.) One item in particular of note in the Declaration is the concept that learning designs themselves can (and do) become OERs for others to use repurpose.

Back to the workshop: I appreciated the simplicity of the sharable learning design concept as implemented in the session: low-tech tools used to spark collaboration and quick design sketches by experienced designers and developers. The process brings to the foreground a lot of interesting questions such as, Ok here’s an artifact created by learners – what now? Is it just a make-work project for points? Where does it go? Where and how could others use it? What activities do we build around it? What support is needed  and where would it come from? How is it connected with the bigger purpose of this learning event? Where are the gaps in this design?

Design sketch

Beyond the immediate design setting, I can also see how such design representations can be used to mentor novice instructional designers and faculty in the creative practice of learning design, expose how the various pieces need to interconnect, and provide a mechanism to consider and discuss which technologies may be most helpful in the implementation of the designs. With the design challenges facing educators engaged in emerging approaches and technologies, more than anything we need creative learning design methods and tools based on sharing and collaboration. And ideally, ones that are simple, intuitive, inspirational, lightweight, sharable and open.