Oppia is Google\u2019s new tool for creating “explorations”. By “exploration” the creators mean a personalised and tracked journey through some learning materials.<\/p>\n
It seems that Google believe that, although a growing amount of educational content is now delivered via video and and other media, the approach remains static and asynchronous. They believe that digitizing a lecture or presentation isn\u2019t enough. I agree with them. Too many developments badged as distance learning aren\u2019t really anything more than on-line textbooks, perhaps with videos or animations replacing static images and, if you\u2019re really lucky, some in-text or end-of-chapter MCQs with a little feedback in the “hard luck, try again” style. Now that\u2019s probably OK for blended learning or flipped classroom approaches, but I don\u2019t think we can call it distance learning.<\/p>\n
So is Oppia the answer? Well it (or something like it) might be a start.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still based on asynchronous and individual use of learning materials, but it allows educational developers to design paths through the materials that are adapted to the individual\u2019s responses to on-line questions. Now these things have been possible for a long time in good VLEs and on-line assessment packages, but what Oppia does is make it easier for the developer to design more sophisticated paths and to use analytics to continually improve the paths. Not new, but easier and potentially much more powerful.<\/p>\n
Have a look at the demo at<\/p>\n