PEDAGOGIC VALUES OF CONDITIONAL ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF BLENDED LEARNING AND IMS LEARNING DESIGN SPECIFICATION

The contribution of IMS LD levels B and C to the concept of e-learning and blended learning as regards properties, conditions and scripted messages of learning objects has been a great step forward in our way of deploying units of learning in our LMS. Students respond much better to complex tasks when a precise learning path has been “followed” beforehand. Administering simple and not-so-simple branching workflows depending on the student response to predefined learning roadmaps has also enabled us to design different activities to suit different rhythms of knowledge intake. Apart from the time limit or deadline for certain activities, we have made use of two simple conditions: a) that one that is dependent on the “mark obtained” in a previous exercise or workshop; and b) the one that is dependent on whether a student has “sent or not sent” an assignment. Far from discouraging our students, the inclusion of conditional activities has spurred them to work harder and more efficiently. Ever since our activities in the LMS are designed to dovetail with in-person classes accurately, even face-to-face classes have profited from this. As a result, the degree of involvement and participation in the LMS and in the in-person classes has risen considerably; even though the overall work is more demanding and challenging. In this paper we will be relating how this has been carried out in our LMS for our courses at the University of Alicante and what pedagogic implications lay behind the deployment of these restrictions.