Many companies are moving into the e-Learning business by putting text or traditional instructional materials on-line. Computer terminals are being used to deliver overwhelming amounts of content by "chunking" books and articles into bite-sized pieces. These "chunks" are often described as learning objects that can be mixed and matched or accessed by users in a variety of ways.

But if the materials have been created in a linear fashion in the first place -- just like traditional books and articles have a fixed beginning, middle and end -- the "chunking" into learning objects doesn't achieve very much.

To take advantage of the interactive, learner-driven opportunities created by Internet and web- based technology, a completely different approach to the design of content is necessary. Learning objects have to be designed and produced for the web from the "bottom up" in a granular fashion so that they can be accessed in a way that serves learner's needs as precisely as possible. In judging a learning product or on-line course, it is thus important to judge whether it has been specifically designed for the web in learning object form, or whether the "learning object" concept is being used in a superficial and inaccurate way to describe a "chunking" of traditional material. If you don't ask this question you'll probably end up buying a product that is inflexible and difficult to use, and impossible to customize for your organization or for individual users in any significant way.

The claim "We have a learning object based system" tells you nothing about the true flexibility of the system and the capabilities for learner-driven learning. The granularity and associated self-organizing capabilities of the learning object architecture is what's key!