My last post was an excuse for this post which will probably suck (don’t all of my posts suck?). I have been reading Wiley’s ideas about learning objects.
This is motivated by the fact that in order to get a grade I have to
read and then I am supposed to build some bit of instruction that uses
50 objects or something like that. (See previous post to understand my
excitement). Right now I remained confused as to whether learning
objects can be useful. I write software for a living – a living which
I actually enjoy and so I am surprisingly motivated to do my job. Part
of software design is the holy grail of reuse. Problem is not even
Indiana Jones has been able to find that grail yet. If you are lucky
you get some reuse within a single project, but outside that project it
is not very likely you will reuse your code. You might
copy/paste/modify but forget trying to use the code outside its
original scope. I might be stupid, but I think that Wiley’s reusability paradox
is a manifestation of this same problem in the instructional
world. Programmers solved this problem but valuing reuse where
possible, but then adopting a strategy known as extreme
programming. This is a topic which is very in depth, but once of
the principles is that if you need to throw away code or refactor that
is ok. The same principles in instructional design would go
far. If you can use it go ahead. If you need to remix it
then do it. If it doesn’t work then STOP MAKING PEOPLE SIT
THROUGH YOUR CRAPPY INSTRUCTION AND THROW IT AWAY. Don’t get
caught up in defining a standard that takes a lifetime to
understand. Instead, invest your time and money in creating
instruction that your users will enjoy and that will actually educate
instead of frustrate them.