Mashups in Learning Design: pushing the flexibility envelope

Internet is evolving toward highly personalized user spaces. Mashups, web applications that combine data from different sources into a single tool, are providing users with higher levels of flexibility to surf the net. These new environments can be used to offer students an attractive learning environment. At a first glance, this flexibility might be contradictory with the tendency toward capturing the interaction and structure of a learning experience in languages such as IMS Learning Design. However, this paper shows an example in which these contexts can be combined to exploit both advantages. The mash-up language LISL is used to describe a flexible learning environment in the context of a Unit of Learning enacted in a learning management system.