Archive for January 23rd, 2012

Inside story

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Duncan Campbell has recently contributed an article about an OU student to The Observer, 22 January 2012.  Graham Godden was sent, aged 12, to a home for “maladjusted boys” for attacking a teacher. Later he became an addict and an armed robber,was featured on Crimewatch as the ‘M25 Bandit’ and called by the Sunday Mirror ‘Britain’s most wanted robber’. He was imprisoned and is now on an Open University degree course in criminology and social sciences. He admits to have being influenced by a film about another OU student. I used to look at the film McVicar [about the robber John McVicar] and think: ‘My God, I wish I was like him.’

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Intense education

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Perhaps owing something to ideas often associated with The Open University the Occupy movement has invited academics to Tent City University, a marquee in London, and also to the Bank of Ideas which meets in a disused office block owed by UBS bank. One newspaper report explained that under the motto ‘Anyone can teach, everyone can learn’, there have been discussions led by academics on a variety of topics including international banking, philosophy, theology, the Arab spring and central Africa’s pygmy hunter-gatherers. Evictions seem likely to occur in the near future.

Were you pally down at the Ally?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

OU television programmes were made at Alexandra Palace, North London, between 1971 and 1981 and then were made at a brand new production centre built at Walton Hall. Although Ally Pally was where the first public television transmissions were made, by the time the OU came along it had only used for news broadcasts for many years and once BBC TV News moved to the TV Centre in 1969 it faced closure. The OU helped preserve its use but, from 1977, when worked started on the new studios in Milton Keynes, the relationship was destined to end. (more…)