OUseful Info

Re-Presentation and Re-Interpretation of OpenLearn XML Materials

Thinking back over many of my Openlearn doodles, it would be hard to see many of the experiments as remix or reuse examples using any common understanding of those terms.

According to the OpenLearn Competition page, reuse and remix are defined as follows:

Define: reuse
Use our content as it is to impact learners. This could be through using it in your own teaching or by delivering our content in a new medium which engages more learners.
Top marks will go for evidence of impact. You might use OpenLearn materials to reach a large number of users - perhaps through a social network you are part of or your own version of Moodle - or you might impact just one person but in a really critical way for their learning.

Define: remix
Amend our materials to create something new. This could mean taking old archived materials and updating them by adding your own knowledge. It might mean localising our content for an audience with different cultural and language needs. Maybe you'll use our knowledge mapping software to demonstrate a new perspective on the materials. For example see the knowledge maps relating to our study units that add new resources and perspectives on the original material.

I've commented on my confusion about these terms before (So What Exactly Is An OpenLearn Content Remix?) but here are a few more thoughts on the topic...

In most of the tinkering I've done with OpenLearn materials, I've not really been interested in how teachers or learners might use what I've produced to deliver learning experiences OR in the content that is delivered.

What does interest me are the ways I can re-present or re-interpret the materials. OpenLearn XML takes the place of LEGO bricks, and at the moment I'm just playing with it...

So here then are some preliminary thoughts on what re-presentation and re-interpretation might be to draw out this distinction:

• Re-presentation: finding alternative ways to present and publish OpenLearn Content units, using OpenLearn XML (ideally) as the source material. Examples here include delivering content via RSS feeds, or via a wiki. Experiments with navigational forms also fit here, maybe? For example, providing hierarchical navigation sidebars (and sensible addressing) or dynamic (mind) maps.


• Re-interpretation: by reinterpretation, I mean seeing the OpenLearn XML as something other than a 'traditional' course unit, such as using the course unit as a database that can be mined in various ways. For example, the "outlinks" from the unit can be used to define a custom search engine, book references can be used to seed an OpenLearn Unit online bookshop and media assets can be stripped to provide a topic specific multimedia channel. Re-presented content can also be used as the basis of re-interpretation. For example, OpenLearn_daily (as well as more general personally scheduled web feeds) reinterpret the way in which content is delivered, in this case as daily chunks.

In short, I guess re-presentation and re-interpretation - which is where my interests lay - represent a re-imagining of what OpenLearn XML might be transformed into in a technical sense...

...whereas remix and reuse are focussed more on the end-user and on how the "contentful" aspect of the materials can be used to deliver actual teaching and learning in association with other resources.

Posted by ajh59 at June 23, 2007 11:29 AM