About a week ago I tweeted:
from what i’m reading between the lines, #SCORM is dead to the ADL. they’re moving on. interesting timing considering #TAACCCT
I had no idea how much hand-wringing and consternation my off-handed comment would cause. It apparently caused (directly or indirectly) some heated discussions about SCORM being dead.
The problem is, I never said “SCORM is dead.” I said “SCORM is dead to the ADL.” Big difference.
LETSI’s Run-Time Web Service (RTWS), a proposed modification of SCORM to use SOAP for communication rather than the current JavaScript model. I presented the first half of the session, covering the basic “what” and “why” ideas while Ben covered the technical details (“how”) in the second half.
And so ends another whirlwind of a week known as DevLearn.
Could the timing have been any better? My San Francisco Giants (yes, my Giants!) won the World Series and decided to have the largest parade in San Francisco history on the first day of DevLearn. It just happened to be a block from the conference site, which was A-OK with me! In their honor, I wore my Giants jersey the entire day.
I’ve had a flurry of emails and messages regarding my SCORM cheat the past few days, and have received feedback from a number of well-regarded SCORM aficionados, some of whom contributed to the standard and helped make SCORM what it is today. This is wonderful, I’m very happy to hear from everyone, especially regarding such an engaging topic.
But as I hear more from these seasoned SCORM pros, I’ve made (what I believe to be) an interesting observation: there is a sharp division between die-hard SCORM developers and casual users. I suppose I’ve felt this way for a long time, but it’s really coming into focus this week. Let me try to define the camps.
I recently emailed a shortlist of good SCORM development resources to a colleague, and figured I should probably post a list here, too. This is a quickie list, and I’m sure I’m leaving someone out. If you know of any resources I’ve missed, please add a link in the comments. This list is presented in no particular order.
Matt Wilcox posted an interesting argument about the CSS3 standard; I think the central points of the argument can be applied to SCORM and where we’re potentially headed with SCORM 2.0.
SCO stands for shareable content object. If a course is not built to be shareable, it isn’t really a SCO, even if it uses SCORM for packaging. Spinning SCORM’s communication element off into its own standard — without the name SCORM — would free SCORM to truly be a Shareable Content Object Reference Model, and would free non-aggregators from having to deal with the complexities of SCORM.
A common thread in many of the posts I’ve been reading is that standards do not lead to innovation, but rather that innovation leads to standardization.
Thoughts and an addendum for my SCORM 2.0 white paper submission
Most e-learning developers don’t care about SCORM and only (begrudingly) learn enough to get the job done. I don’t blame them. This brings up the never-ending question when it comes to using SCORM in courseware: What are you really trying to do with SCORM?
