Working in a course team

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Professor David Hawkridge

In 1975 David Hawkridge said that course teams were

made up of four kinds of people. First, there are the academic subject-matter experts. These are the physicists, the historians, the sociologists and so on. Second, there are instructional designers from the Institute of Educational Technology. Their interest lies in the structuring of the subject-matter, the selection and specification of learning objectives for the students, the preparation of suitable assignments, and in evaluating the success of the courses. (more…)

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Learning in an Open World online only conference

Monday, June 14th, 2010
As knowing where we are going, or might go, can help provide a new perspective on where we’ve come from, this conference, 22nd to 23rd June 2010 could help. It is 9am to 5pm and online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2012

There is a blog by organiser Matin Weller here and the programme is here

The OU has a conference every year to share practice and research around learning and technology. This year the event is completely online and open to all. The event will take place across 2 days (22nd and 23rd June), with the synchronous presentations being held in Elluminate and asynchronous discussion held in Cloudworks.

The theme of the conference is ‘Openness in education’ and in keeping with that theme it is open to everyone, not just OU staff. It is an opportunity to engage in dialogue around the four main themes of open content, teaching, learning and access.

If you are interested in ‘attending’ some or all of the conference, please go to the Cloudworks site http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2012 and also check there for up to date information about the programme, practice sessions and call for contributions. You will need to register on Cloudworks to add any content and to indicate you are attending.

Contributions will be in a web format, such as YouTube, Slideshare, Animoto, which might result in a broader audience, able to engage with the projects and ideas within the Open University, and a discussion which will aid the University in its exploration of the theme of open education.

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The message and the media

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Will this help to contextualise how far, or indeed whether, media determines learning?

A five-part ‘media history’ series starts at 11pm tonight, 14th June on BBC Radio Three, and runs every night this week. It’s called “Rewiring the Mind”, runs in ‘The Essay’ slot, and it looks at ways in which media have shaped ways of thinking since about 1900:

 

The Essay: Rewiring the Mind, 11pm, Radio 3::

The historian of broadcasting, David Hendy, explores the ways in which the electronic media have shaped the modern mind.

Episode 1 (Monday 14th June): “The Ethereal Mind”:

How did wireless conquer the world in the early years of the twentieth century, and how did a fascination with radio among scientists and writers unleash new ideas about the transmission of thought and the utopian potential of invisible forces?

Episode 2 (Tuesday 15th June): “The Cultivated Mind”:

How effective were the efforts of the BBC to improve the ‘public mind’ between the wars? Did broadcasts such as W.B. Yeats’s poetry recitals or E.M. Forster’s talks foster ideas of a ‘spiritual democracy’ and an enlightened citizenry?

Episode 3 (Wednesday 16th June): “The Anxious Mind”:

Tonight the reporting of the Holocaust in 1945 and television coverage of the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion in 1986. If media have made us all witnesses to horror and tragedy do they also help us to come to terms with suffering, or just leave us depressed at the wrongs in the world?

Episode 4 (Thursday 17th June): “The Fallible Mind”:

Two seminal TV programmes: the American drama Marty, broadcast in 1953, and the BBC’s Face-to-Face, from 1960, used unflinching close-ups to reveal human beings as flawed individuals. Did they make us more compassionate – or just more obsessed with the private lives of others?

Episode 5 (Friday 18th June): “The Superficial Mind”:

Might the Internet, despite its wonderful power as a repository of information and creativity, be slowly degrading or enhancing our mental abilities? Are our brains ready for it?

(Presenter: David Hendy. Producer: Matt Thompson).

The series will also be available to listen to on BBC I-player for up to seven days after broadcast.

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Open to methods?

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Are the OU's methods poles apart from those of other educational insitutions? And should they be?

It has been argued that the course team, with its mix of academic and other staff, was a distinctive method of producing teaching materials which was pioneered by the OU. W Stewart, Higher education in postwar Britain, Macmillan, London , 1989, pp. 116-117, contextualised this development as one of many novel aspects of the OU when he argued that the university was innovative in nine ways.

1/ It was not part of a national plan.

2/ It was a political decision.

3/ It came not from the UGC in collaboration with the CVCP local authorities and academics.

4/ There was considerable opposition.

5/It was the largest single university institution.

6/ In academic administration and in teaching technique it was unique in the UK.

7/ It had the lowest student unit costs.

8/ ‘in several overseas centres the OU has been closely examined to ensure that it may travel’.

9/’its students have never been generally eligible for manatory grants’.

Others took a different view. David Harris was at the OU, 1970-1973 and wrote a book about it. He argued that ‘The teaching system was shaped as much by administrative and political pressures as by any particular educational goals and in three short years (1970-1973) it had already become institutionalised, reified and unmodifiable in essence’ (David Harris, ‘Educational technology at the Open University: a short history of achievement and cancellation’, BJET 1, 7, Jan 1976, pp. 43-53, p. 44).

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