LETSI/SCORM 2.0 Wrap Up and Thanks!

So I spent most of last week at the LETSI/SCORM 2.0 Workshop in Pensacola, FL. I used CoverItLive to do a running set of notes of the workshop and that's available here. I don't want to go over all the stuff in my notes but I did want to be sure and point out that the workshop developed and is currently refining about 30 use cases for SCORM 2.0. This is in addition to the 100+ white papers that have been written and submitted to LETSI on SCORM 2.0 topics.

All that tells me is that there is considerable intellectual firepower being directed at this issue of what SCORM should/would or could be in the future. It also tells me that the LETSI leadership is serious about creating an open and transparent process and being as inclusive as possible. Kudos.  It doesn't tell me if the efforts will be successful -I think that a large part of that success will depend on how well LETSI can research, evaluate and leverage existing work being done in terms of SOAs, Web services and so on...and how fast LETSI can move....and how the market reacts to LETSI's biz model. I just had this thought - could LETSI be hamstrung by the market it serves?

What I mean is that the e-learning industry - or whatever you want to call it - over the past ten years, hasn't exactly been keeping pace with the pace of tech advances...I think KM has probably done better but still not great...but services that have their own conferences like ECM (enterprise content management) have also been progressing but as an industry, I don't think e-learning has exactly done a great job at integrating the advances in these other areas. I wonder if part of this is due in part to an out-moded model of instructional design than is focused on industrial-era units of learning like courses and isn't built from an architectural standpoint, to handle the idea of people actually learning vis systems like IM, wikis, blogs, etc.

I will say this...whether or not LETSI or SCORM 2.0 succeeds or not - it will not be because it lacks great, dedicated people. I met a lot of great folks like "Hey I think I'm drinking with Robert Scoble" look-alike Lang Holloman, or my new Twitter-based best friend and brother from another mother Aaron Silvers, Dapper Dan Young, Angelo "Have I told you about the flood" Panar, Tom "former guy who really ran Macromedia" King, Av "The Host with the Most" Barr, Allyn "G'day mate" Radford, Eric "Socrates was an idiot and I taught Piaget everything he knew" Roberts, Mike "BAQON Bits" Rustici, Nina "The Hammer" Pasini Diebler, Ellen "The Maestro" Meiselman and a cast of dozens. I should also thanks to the IHMC for a TERRIFIC hosting job and a great chef. So let's get out there and get all mavericky and see if we can see Russia from our house or maybe just a way forward.

Comments

[Clark Quinn]

Mark, couldn't agree more about the eLearning industry lagging. Marc Rosenberg's been on about KM, and I was doing adaptive systems back in 2000 based on LOs, and where are we? I think it's partly ID mindsets, but mostly it's the collision of lack of imagination with lack of promotion of the opportunities. We need more of the mindset of assemblies of capabilities rather than monolithic systems.