Mind-Mapping for Web Instruction and Learning

Short Description
A common problem for faculty, when confronted with the task of enhancing class instruction or designing distance courses is how to convert fluid learning experiences to the Web environment. Based on experiences of faculty development at Franciscan University and Eastern Ohio Virtual School District, this study focuses on domain-specific instructional strategies and models called “learning templates” or predecessors of learning objects that can be applied to the curriculum at almost any educational level. They encapsulate web-enabled instructional events drawing from conceptual mapping, learning strategies and methods of inquiry. These templates and the learning objects created with them can be replicated, adjusted and reused.

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Content
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Finally, learning objects are a recent development of instructional technology. The definition of the Metadata Working Group of the IEEE [4] is a good reference: “Any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning”. To this definition, one must add that users of learning objects identify and describe them by means of metadata; which are sort of labels allowing electronic storage and manipulation of learning objects. They indicate properties of learning objects such as title, author, area of knowledge, learning objective, mode of presentation, etc. Metadata are coded on a commonly accepted protocol such as XML, and efforts are made to achieve standardized forms of coding. There are several groups working on this matter, SCORM, IMS, IEEE, Dublin Core and EML; all of them with presence in the Internet. The type of operations facilitated by metadata are searching, archiving, rearranging, copying and delivering objects in courseware. Due to all these features, learning objects present a potential solution to the methodological conundrum of generating reproducible instructional material, as capitalized by Wiley and contributors [5]. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of the Internet makes it possible to create learning objects anywhere and disseminate them worldwide to audiences in different contexts. It is foreseeable that independent learners, in near future, will search for the appropriate objects matching their needs; then, they will arrange these objects in appropriate sequences to achieve their desired goals with higher efficiency than they can do now through regular courses. This, for sure, will be accompaingned by tutoring services that already are available in the Internet.
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