OER player for your Ipad to integrate it in your PLE
SCORM PLAYER FOR IPAD
We'll present an autonomous player for IOS (Apple Ipad) specially built for SCORM packages produced with eXelearning authoring software and also IMS and other educational packages provided by open course sites like MIT-OCW or Educommons.
The player will allow to discover, to downloading and to execute the educational package without other limitations than the hardware limitations of the mobile device.
There is an increasing number of open educational resources (OER) for teachers and students around the world that are downloadable for reusing directly or adapted for specific purposes. But the use of those OER's is often limited by technical questions, especially format issues. In such cases, reusability is an unsolved question, more a desire than a fact.
Normalized ways to package educational resources, like SCORM o IMSCP have tried to solve this problem. They produce files that are readable and executable if the right player for them is available. That is the case of many Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Moodle, Web CT, Blackboard, etc.
But the problem persists if you want to create an Open Information System in order to be accessed by the student's Personal Learning Environment. (PLE)
There is a few stand-alone SCORM players, but they are only used for validation or testing due to the complexity of their use.
Also, as a SCORM alternative, a number of those OER's are built in the way of other recognizable formats like the ones from OCW-MIT or Educommons platform, but again the execution of those packages is limited.
However, the increasing use of Personal Learning Environments makes us believe that it is necessary to make it possible to use and to execute the educational package when and where the learner desires. Therefore, PLE should be extended far from the screen or virtual desk in the computer to the devices that the student uses in his regular activity, such as cell phones, tablets, ebook readers, etc..
Mobile devices and specifically digital tablets like Apple Ipad and similar are part of those new learning spaces. Our proposal tries to integrate them as elements of the PLE that students build to achieve their educational goals.
In our proposal, we have created a library of Open Educational Objects which have been built with eXeLearning authoring software (SCORM objects) and an Ipad app to access to the library, to download them and to execute them off-line.