The Mentor Project: from content to instruction

Instructional technology is rapidly expanding into all levels of society from a wide variety of government and educational institutions to corporate enterprises. We currently have unprecedented access to information and resources, yet with all the advances in technology and profusion of web sites, there is no standard on how to transform this deluge of content into instruction using technology. Specifically, there is a lack of direction on how to effectively sequence individual learning objects (reusable digital resources) that makes sound instructional sense. Before the potential for computer managed instruction can be completely realized, instructional design must be incorporated into instructional technology. The Mentor Project is designed to explore this issue by mediating between learning objects and instructional sequencing. In this paper, the authors present an XML meta-grammar to categorize learning objects in meaningful human terms, an XML meta-grammar for lesson sequencing, and a prototype of the sequence editor, a course authoring system.