Learning Objects and the New CAI

With the term learning object tentatively defined, I would like to register a complaint. The learning object movement suffers from the same delirium to which every other major instructional technology effort in recent memory has fallen victim: an almost exclusive focus on "technology" to the virtual exclusion of the "instructional." The LTSC, IMS, ARIADNE, and other groups are busily finalizing years of work on metadata specifications, language bindings, database structures, etc., but to my knowledge none of these groups has addressed instructional issues such as the pedagogical implications of the existence of learning objects online or in the classroom. Where's the "learning" in "learning object?"