xAPI: What Does an Instructional Designer Need to Know?

Editor's Notes

1. Introduce Megan
2. ASK: Using your pointer tool, put your name on which onboarding plan you’d rather participate in. DISCUSS: Why did you pick that?
3. xAPI is a simple, lightweight way to store and retrieve records about learners and share this data across platforms. These records (known as activity statements) can be captured in a consistent format from any number of sources (known as activity providers) and they are aggregated in a learning record store (or LRS). The LRS is analogous to the SCORM database in an LMS.   The “x” in xAPI is short for “experience” and implies that these activity providers are not just limited to traditional AICC- and SCORM-based e-learning. With xAPI you can track classroom activities, usage of performance support tools, participation in online communities, mentoring discussions, performance assessment, actual business results, and so on. The goal is to create a full picture of an individual’s learning experience and how that relates to her performance.   “API” stands for application programming interface, a common method for software systems to interact and share data. xAPI activity statements can be generated by activity providers and sent to the LRS, or they can be sent from the LRS to other systems. Many current applications offer APIs to make their data available in other systems, and vice versa.
4. Let’s go back to the ‘book”.. This is pulled from the xAPI documentation almost verbatim.. this is the “promise” of xAPI. #1 – actually this answer makes people involved with xAPI cringe. It’s like saying your smartphone is a next generation book. But it’s a good place to start the conversation. And then quickly move along. #2 – from the instructional design perspective, when your job is to build and track training. This is where it’s at. With SCORM you can track about 20 things, only 4 of which are interesting. (Location, Time, Score, Complete, Answers). Now that’s not to say that you can’t get really clever with SCORM and trick it into doing a few other things. #3 – builds off this – reinforce that learning experiences in the future won’t come entirely from e-learning. Give examples (RFID, Ab Scex KPI’s, other “triggers” that happen in the real world.. Call center logs, manufacturing floor, blah blah) #4 – xAPI won’t do this for you. It provides the data that my help you do it .. But it won’t do it for you.
5. It’s worthwhile to spend a little bit of time talking about what happens when we live in a SCORM world (which we all do) and how xAPI is different.
6. SCORM is a standard for the way that elearning courses communicate with their learning management systems. It tracks about 20 pieces of data, about 5 of which are interesting to instructional designers SCORM is just fine if everything you need to learn and track can be housed in your LMS. And you only learn when you’re connected to the internet and logged into the LMS.