Going for Green: Learning Design sustainability champions

Kathleen Calder, James Openshaw, Catriona Mattews, Hayley Johns, and Paul Astles  ~ Learning Designers

The Learning Design Sustainability Group at The Open University has been championing sustainability at the Open University in one way or another for some time now. The end of 2023 saw a wonderful celebration of that work at the Green Gown Awards 2023.

We’re pleased to share this reflection on our experience of the Green Gown Awards (GGA) process – from thinking about putting our work forward through to the awards dinner and celebrating our achievements in December 2023. Alongside our thoughts we’re also officially unveiling the sustainability resources page on our blog site.

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Virtually reality: Learning while we play with VR at work

Mary Simper and Paul Astles  ~ Learning Designers

Who knew that meeting other humans inside a virtual world could create a sense of togetherness and promote positive wellbeing. Well, it turns out that it can. The Learning Design team have been experimenting with the use of virtual reality (VR). This article will explore how it made us feel, some of the limitations of using VR, and some possible use cases we have identified from our experiences. We’ll also share our own experience of using VR to help us plan and write this blog post.

We’re keen to hear about your experiences of the technology too so look out for the call for thoughts a little later. For now, let’s start where all good stories start, with a little bit of genuine humanity.

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The Introverted Facilitators’ Club: How to be a quiet LD in the sometimes noisy world of module design?

Hayley Johns ~ Learning Designer

Back in September, I attended my first ever ‘real life’ or in-person conference (the ALT conference, at the University of Warwick – you can read about my and my colleague’s experiences here). It was a brilliant experience, and we learnt a huge amount.

As well as all of the fascinating sessions we attended, being in that kind of big, mingly conference space for the first time really got me thinking about the social side of our role in Learning Design (LD). When I got back to my WFH set-up (feat. tea, dressing gown and small brown cockapoo), I decided to reach out to Learning Design colleagues who consider themselves to be introverts and to hear about their experiences in the LD role in either physical or virtual spaces. Continue reading “The Introverted Facilitators’ Club: How to be a quiet LD in the sometimes noisy world of module design?”

Who needs superpowers when we have SKILLS!?

Clare Hill ~ Learning Designer

Let’s face it, we’d all secretly like to have a superpower but do we really need one? We already have the capacity to learn how to do something and practise to get better, and in doing so we develop skills. We have all been developing a variety of skills to varying levels throughout our lives and we’ll go on doing it. Our capacity for developing skills is limitless – skills are our superpowers! Continue reading “Who needs superpowers when we have SKILLS!?”