I have a practical question. I understand what an OLE is. I have developed one: http://www.rmcdenver.com/useguide/ In my estimation, it satisfied the "generated context" idea--an enabling context based upon "teacher as co-learner" unique needs and circumstances.
Teachers are required to address state, national, or district/local standards in their instruction. Many now have the "boxes and wires" to use technology as a tool in the classroom. Many have gone through professional development, and are adopting technology as a tool to support learning. Now they are up to phase three in my learning/adoption model--teacher as co-learner, with students, in the classroom. ( http://www.cudenver.edu/~lsherry/pubs/aect98.html )
Teachers at this level have indicated that they wish to know the process of creating Internet-based lessons that address standards. That is why I created this OLE.
Now here is my quandary. Evaluation data show that site usage (hits) is stable and slightly increasing. Alta Vista shows that there are about 170-180 other URLs that are linking to this site - places that use the OLE as a professional development tool both in the US and internationally. There are many hits on the "submit a form" page each month. That is where the teacher goes through the ID process, selects a standard as an objective to address, designs and implements a lesson based on the continuously updated resources in the OLE, and is supposed to submit it to us (with all intellectual rights residing with the author--that is clearly stated). Our site is free: federally funded. There is even a prize for the best "lesson of the month".
So here's the problem. Based on teachers' stated intent, we designed an OLE to help them with what they'd like to be "enabled" to do. There are sample lessons, and a few lessons submitted by other teachers over the past two years. These are very popular pages--they like to look at other teachers' actual lessons, which reside in the "lesson bank" of lessons submitted by site users. But very, very few new lessons are being submitted. What's wrong with my scenario?
If any of you wise folks can apply Dr. Hannafin's theory to my problem situation, I'd appreciate your insights.