IMS Global: What feedback has been received from teachers?

ST: TLF has received overwhelming positive feedback from teachers and students. Teachers have reported that the digital content increases student engagement. TLF has commissioned independent research to establish whether the TLF content impacts on students' learning. This research is ongoing but the preliminary results are that it does have a positive impact on a student's learning¹.

IMS Global: Will you be adding more emphasis on assessment going forward? Will this be formative or summative in nature and who will use the results?

ST: One of the priorities for Phase 3 is to draw on data obtained from national testing and develop content that will assist students who are underachieving in national benchmarks for literacy and numeracy. As part of this strategy TLF is developing assessment objects along similar principles and style as the learning objects; that is, highly interactive with feedback for both the teacher and student. This will enable teachers to plan individual student programs based on the data they receive form the assessment objects. This project is a pilot. TLF is investigating the use of the IMS QTI standard for assessment, and we are currently modifying our existing Flash authored learning objects.

IMS Global: One of your objectives is to create content for sharing with other jurisdictions and other countries. To what degree is your organization sharing content and best practices with other nations? To what degree do you believe your program will be an international participant five years from now and how is this likely to be manifested?

ST: Currently we have shared content with the LearnAlberta² project from Canada and supported open source software initiatives such as Global Education & Learning Community (http://ww.curriki.org)³. TLF has shared its experiences with other like programs such as The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)⁴ in the USA, BECTA⁵ and Futurelab⁶ in the UK, Korean Education and Research Information Service (KERIS)⁷, and has worked with the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST)⁸ in Thailand to assist them to develop their own learning objects based on TLF methodology. TLF developed an open source learning content management systems (BELTS) that was released on SourceForge.net⁹.

All specifications and processes that have been agreed and evolved are available through the TLF website and other forums.

IMS Global: Has the initiative succeeded in growing the industry of learning technology product and service providers? What lessons learned have there been in this regard?

ST: In its review of Phase 2 AESOC commissioned a report¹⁰ on the success of TLF and its engagement with the developer market. This report highlighted:

TLF assisted in making local content developers more competitive in overseas markets
Broadening the potential sources of content available to schools through establishing procurement models with cultural institutions

Curriculum Corporation's experience with the multimedia industry is that while the industry was an enthusiastic partner there were skills gaps in instructional design, project management, and documentation. The multimedia industry was inexperienced in developing to standards. TLF insisted that learning objects were to be subjected to a rigorous quality assurance process for technical, learning design, and editorial integrity. These requirements meant that developers had to undertake documentation and put in QA processes that they were not used to. One consequence was that TLF established a preferred pool of suppliers that had developed the required skill set. TLF has witnessed improved project management, documentation, and a greater capacity for developers to support instructional design that reflected a schools rather than corporate market.

Curriculum Corporation has maintained an ongoing relationship with eLearning industry associations to ensure that the schools sector is represented in training and development activities.

¹See Freebody P: Evaluating The Le@rning Federation's online curriculum content initiative. Summary of findings from surveys, site visits and a field experiment. January 2007 http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/research

² See http://www.learnalberta.ca

³ See http://www.curriki.org

⁴ See http://www.cosn.org

⁵ See http://www.becta.org.uk

⁶ See http://www.futurelab.org.uk

⁷ See http://english.keris.or.kr

⁸ See http://www.ipst.ac.th

⁹ See http://belts.sourceforge.net

¹⁰Flavel, Greg (Convergent Consulting, Sydney): Review of The Le@rning Federation Market Linkages Phase Two