The problem with definitions - or how I learned to get over learning objects and start making good e-learning instead
Perhaps LOs are only meaningful to educational technologists or the people who write the software to manipulate these data. The end user, the teacher let's say, doesn't really care what you call the parts, they just want to achieve a specific end point, creating a PowerPoint file or creating some e-learning for example. Learning the names of all the parts often just gets in the way. That's why users don't read software manuals, because good software should be unambiguous and as intuitive as possible. Who cares if you guys can't agree what a learning object is, I just want to create something I can use to teach my students. I've heard words to that effect many times when talking to colleagues. It's a bit like, well at a stretch any way, whether or not to use HTML tables or CSS to structure your web pages. How many people care about that? Sure, they care about the output, how well a web page works in different web browsers, but probably for most people they just trust that the folk who make the web page editing software will sort that out and just give the user the best solution. Same with LOs in my opinion.
So now when I'm in a meeting with my fellow academics and learning objects crop up in the discussion, I just say they're bits of reusable e-learning material and everyone gets it and we quickly move on to talking about the really interesting stuff. Like how to create really effective e-learning materials.
Enough about learning objects for the time being. So now, who's going to add metadata to my learning objects... ;)