Tin Can The Heart of eLearning
“I could stay young and chipper and I’d lock it with a zipper, if I only had a heart.”
Tin Can The Heart of eLearning
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Table of Contents What is Tin Can? The Heart of Learning Design Design Implications of the Tin Can API • Truly Blended Solutions • Curated Courses • Leveraging 70:20:10 Learning Beyond the Classroom and Course Paradigm • • • •
Analytics & Big data Fresh Content Intellectual Property Personal Data Lockers
Users of Tin Can Examples Conclusion References
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Tin Can The Heart of eLearning
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Tin Can, the Experience API, is the heart of eLearning design! The technology can allow designers to create learning experiences that are more organic, fluid and fun. The API or Application Programming Interface has the potential to free the design of learning from constraints of technology, context and a silo-mentality. Tin Can enabled eLearning can converge diverse approaches, devices and contexts to deliver transformative learning experiences - both for the learner and the sponsor of learning.
“With Tin Can, the latest Khan Academy video can become a trackable learning event as soon as it is released.”
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Its capability to recognize and communicate learning - formal, informal, social and collaborative - across platforms and devices as also offline opens up immense possibilities for truly blended learning approaches that can offer unshackled learning options to learners.
What is Tin Can? The Tin Can API is a web service that allows for statements of experience (typically learning experiences, but they could be anything) to be delivered to and stored securely in a Learning Record Store (LRS). LRSs communicate with other LRSs and also with LMSs. From a learning design perspective, the promise of Tin Can lies in the fact that it brings within the ambit of learning those learning experiences that are not tracked by an LMS or any formal learning intervention. This feature alone can radically alter the learning design landscape. Tin Can is community-driven and free to implement.
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Top LMS Trend for 2014 “2014 will see a range of initiatives to address the need to quantify, track and share intdividual’s experiences in both informal and formal learning.” Source: 12 ELearning predictions for 2014. Edtech Europe.
How Does it Work? People learn from interactions with other people, content, and beyond. These actions can happen anywhere and signal an event where learning could occur. All of these can be recorded with the Tin Can API. The Tin Can API recognizes and records learning experiences by sending secure statements in the form of “Noun, verb, object” or “I did this” to a Learning Record Store (LRS). The LRS, which is a repository, records them and shares them with other LRSs or LMSs as the case maybe. An LRS can be standalone or exist within an LMS. The statements can be sent by any enabled device with occasional connectivity. The Tin Can API is the next generation of SCORM. One major difference between SCORM and Tin Can is that while SCORM sends each datum as a single API call, Tin Can groups data into statements, so much more data is sent to the LRS in one go. This means sending a much smaller number of API calls. One reason for this is that SCORM reports statuses and Tin Can tends to report events. For example, in SCORM we tell the LMS whether or not the learner has passed at a given point in time, whereas in Tin Can, we report the event of the learner passing.
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Tin Can presents an opportunity to create systems and components that comprehend a novel format for experiential data. The Tin Can API has also been built to support a distributed architecture, where statement streams can be propagated to many places, and driven by many sources. Hooking into streams of information already being produced by major learning based vendors and applications could offer some interesting mash ups and programming possibilities. The Tin Can API can offer real value in areas completely unrelated to e-learning.
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The Heart of Learning Design Tin Can has the potential of enabling designers to create and assemble learning experiences that are more personal, interconnected and diverse. The fact that one can track all kinds of learning - digital and otherwise - and combine these in the design of learning experiences for institutions and individuals, alters the paradigm of course design as we know it today. With Tin Can, course design can truly and effectively blend online and offline interventions. Also, context can be fluid, informal learning opportunities can be harnessed and accounted for. Further, multiple devices, platforms and delivery mechanisms can be used to deliver learning experiences that don’t just mimic real-life but are from and of life. We all know that some learning scenarios work well face to face while others can be more effective in an online medium. So, blended solutions bridging the gap between the offline and the online worlds are always welcome with educators and learners alike. However, the Experience API, takes this concept more than a few notches ahead. Designers can not only blend crafted and formal learning experiences but also those that are informal, intentional, accidental and non-formal. The conversation is no longer about reusability of silos of content created for formal learning interventions. It is about putting the power of the internet and the real world in the hands of a learning designer. So, the course design can move from Open Learning Resources, Academia, Peer-to-Peer learning, one-on-one interactions with a colleague to work portfolios, community projects or collaborations in MOOC hangouts. It makes redundant concerns that some fields of study, like Law for instance, do not lend themselves to eLearning. The learning can happen across media, formats, instructional models and delivery mechanisms. Here are some design implications of the Tin Can API.
Truly Blended Solutions eLearning is often criticized for being a simulated learning experience that is somewhat divorced from real life. It is about real-life situations but lacks an immediacy that a learning experience with peers can bring to the table. While blended solutions do bridge this gap, the range of activities they could select from was limited to those that can be tracked by an LMS. With Tin Can there are limitless possibilities in how a learning experience that answers to stringent learning objectives can be stringed together. Since Tin Can is able to track any learning anywhere including not just formal face-to-face learning, but also informal and social learning, designers can cherry pick the best quality resources wherever available.
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A relevant TED Talk, a workshop, interviews, shooting a short film, a simulation or a capstone assignment can all be included when designing or putting together a learning experience. Tin Can will allow these learning activities to be closely woven together, interlinked and tracked in one place. The instruction, the application and the assessment of learning can alternate between the online and the offline world to best meet a set of objectives. Added to this, educators can more easily put together learning experiences that bring out the interlinkages between fields of study rather than create silo-based learning. The fact that you can reflect the real world in your learning will allow more scope for integrated curriculum design to create holistic learning experiences.
Curated Courses
I don’t have a resume! Check my Personal Data Locker, please! Courseware development has so far mostly been about creation of content and its delivery. Tin Can enables the focus to move from creation to curation and delivery. With an exponential increase in the volume of information available online, content curation is gaining more and more prominence. This means with Tin Can, designers can use open content resources and other high quality, free online resources to create courses and instruct learners. Educators and designers can use open content initiatives, creative commons, Udacicty, Coursera, EdX, Wikieducator and multiple other resources to put together content for their courses. This will give the learners access to a variety of learning resources and formats while in turn bringing down the costs of content creation in custom learning courses.
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Leveraging 70:20:10 We are all learning, all the time. While talking to our peers, collaborating on projects, discussing with colleagues and sharing ideas. Add to that the fact that we are now connected all the time. And information is constantly streaming to us. A TED Talk, a Khan’s academy lesson, an insightful discussion, a game, a post shared and discussed on a social media site – informal learning is happening 24x7. McCall, Lombardo and Eichinger’s survey of high-performing managers revealed that: “Lessons learned by successful and effective managers are roughly: • 70% from tough jobs • 20% from people (mostly the boss) • 10% from courses and reading” Tin Can will can enable organizations to tap into this informal learning to extend learning beyond the classroom and course paradigm.
Analytics and Big Data In the e-learning context, big data refers to the data that is produced by learners while interacting with the learning content. LMSs, CMSs and other media, including social networks collect this data. The LRS will track data beyond the LMSs. This can allow us to create truly adaptive and personalized learning experiences.
Staying Current Content within a course can stay fresh and current as educators and designers can include a piece of content, a workshop or a recent Ted talk in an instructional module as soon as it is available. With SCORM, datedness of content has always been an issue. With Tin Can, educators can update the course curriculum based on recent developments and trends and learners can stay up-to-date.
Intellectual Property Courseware development for universities faces significant constraints on account of copyright issues when it comes to sharing or embedding content within a course, which is anyways available online. This includes
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Tin Can The Heart of eLearning
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articles, websites, YouTube links, etc. This content need not be embedded within a course. Learners can be pointed to links and other resources and while they view the content, the experience can be tracked and reported back by the LRS as a learning event.
Personal Data Lockers The ownership of learning will shift from institutions and organizations to the learner. The recorded statements of learning are in the name of the learner. Regardless of the context, the learning experience is stored as part of the learners experience. Learners can even have their own “personal data lockers” with their learning information. Employees might very well route possible employers and institutions to their personal data lockers to assess their learning records. The learners can take their data with them across institutions and organizations.
Who is Using Tin Can In spite of the stated potential of the API, the adoption rates are not as high as expected. People are still more comfortable with SCORM. It’s been around for a long time, they know it and have been using it. The stated benefits of Tin Can are not yet evident to many and most people do not know what it can do for them or how. There is also a perception that it is disruptive and this causes a resistance as people are not sure how it can fit in with their existing systems. However, there is a group of pioneering companies and programmers who are using the API in interesting ways. These and other applications can also be incorporated in eLearning courses to track and share different kinds of learning experiences. Examples
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Tappestry a mobile app allows “users to enter Threads of information that they have learned” and record them into a Tin Can LRS.
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Tin Can bookmarklet puts an “I Learned This” button in the browser toolbar for recording the relevant learning events while browsing the web.
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Book Scanner app (Android) can scan the barcode on a book.
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Articulate’s Storyline and Presenter products are Tin Can-enabled.
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Tin Can The Heart of eLearning
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Lectora Version 11 and CourseMill LMS is slated to support the Tin Can API.
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Roleplay’s scenario-based learning activities can now make Tin Can statements that can be sent to one or more Learning Record Stores.
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Exam Builder has integrated the Tin Can API with their online test creation application, Exam Builder. This application can issue Tin Can statements to one or more Learning Record Stores.
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Blackboard is adding Tin Can support to its Learn platform so users can import, launch and report on Tin Can content.
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Docebo Cloud supports the Tin Can API. Their Cloud LMS is able to receive Tin Can statements through its built-in LRS, but users can also upload their own Tin Can packages inside the LMS, and use them.
Go to http://tincanapi.com/adopters/ for more information in the gaming, simulations, social learning, mobile apps, custom development and Web Apps segments.
Conclusion The API has the potential to transform the design of learning. However, this will require not just new technologies but also a new mindset. Learning professionals and the industry will need to work collaboratively to help evolve this technology. Learning designers can take the lead by designing and creating solutions that exploit the potential of this new technology for the benefit of the learner, while simultaneously educating the clients about what the API can do for them.
Reference www.tincanapi.com
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