General Studies in Instructional Systems

I have not seen many papers or commentaries on the "history and current state of implementation research on learning support environments". One of the possible reasons for this is that there is quite a bit of history that goes back a long way, and with the expansion of the Internet in the 1990s, various learning support environments have emerged at an accelerated pace. Also, to make a somewhat unbiased historical assessment, we need numerical support, which is not an easy task. A comprehensive study of this subject would be quite a challenge, and there seems to be no end to the amount of research that could be done on the subject.

Therefore, we have decided to take up one of the explanatory papers and consider it within the scope of this paper. The paper [1] was written in the Journal of the Japan Society for Educational Technology (JSET) by Dr. Nakabayashi, who has been involved in pioneering research on implementation of learning support environments, especially from the viewpoint of standardization of SCORM.

The title of this paper is "Technical Standardization and Openness in E-Learning" and is summarized in terms of technical standardization and openness, but the focus here is to summarize the historical transitions and standardization of technology and research on learning support environments. We will study "open source systems" at another time.

As a matter of fact, the most detailed description of "the history and current state of implementation research on learning support environments" is found in Wikipedia [2] and in the History of virtual learning environments [3]. It is quite detailed when combined with virtual learning environments 1990s [3] and [4], which is about VLE (virtual learning environments). At first, I thought this one would be the teaching material, but I thought it was too much and the overview was not easy to understand, so I finally decided to use [1] as the designated paper, including the experience of being exposed to a "commentary paper" format.

However, the VLE and its history [2-4] is also a valuable resource and should be used as a reference for reading [1] after a cursory diagonal reading.

As indicated in the discussion of the task, students should focus on the historical transitions and standardization of technology and research on learning support environments, list what they found out and what they wondered about, conduct research on what they wondered about, and then write what they found out under three headings: what they found out, what they wondered about, and what they found out about, and write it down in the discussion.

[1]
Kisyohi Nakabayashi(2007)Technology Standardization and Open Movement in e-Learning［in Japanese］(<Special Issue> Application and Aggregation of Learning Objects and Learning Data). 

Japan Journal of Educational Technology. 2007, Vol.31, No.3, 285-295.

(We have mailed this paper, but if you are a member of the Japan Society for Educational Technology by 2007, you will have it on hand.)

[2]
History of virtual learning environments @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments

[3]
History of virtual learning environments 1990s @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments_1990s

[4]
Virtual learning environment @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_learning_environment