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Maximising student support: Equitable Outcomes Challenge Week 2025
Jannah Aljafri, Anna Judd-Yelland, Penelope Lee, and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers The days may be getting colder and darker, but the Christmas season is upon us, plus we’ve just enjoyed some great virtual ‘fireside chats’ during The Open University’s Equitable Outcomes Challenge Week. 🍵🔥 Colleagues from across the University shared their projects on…
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Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education: Reflections from an International Collaboration
Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers Since 2022, members of The Open University’s (OU) Learning Design and Institute of Educational Technology (IET) teams have played an integral role in the Erasmus+ project Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education (iLED). The three-year iLED project was co-ordinated by the University of Zagreb and alongside…
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‘Words of Wisdom’: Presenting our project at the EAUC conference 2025
Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers We felt proud (and lucky, given the uncertain financial situation across Higher Education) to be invited to speak at the 2025 Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (aka EAUC) conference and to represent both the Open University and the Learning Design team for the second year…
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Learning Design and sustainability: Reflections on the 2025 Advance HE Sustainability Symposium
Kathleen Calder SFHEA ~ Senior Learning Designer In March I joined a panel to present our poster ‘Learning design as a catalyst for embedding sustainability’ at the AdvanceHE Sustainability Symposium. The poster describes some of the structured approaches the Learning Design Sustainability Group has taken to support embedding sustainability in curriculum design through connecting with…
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Exploring two frameworks from The Open University: Critical AI Literacy Skills and Responsible by Design
Dr Mirjam Hauck ~ Academic Co-Lead for AI in LT&A; Eleanor Moore and Mary Simper ~ Learning Designers The Critical AI Literacy skills framework As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to make its impact felt in HE, influencing everything from the way we search online to how we learn and teach, it’s important that educators…
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APT24: Reflecting on our experience presenting on AI at King’s College London
Katia Shulga and Mary Simper ~ Learning Designers This summer we had the pleasure of delivering two presentations at the annual APT conference at King’s College London on behalf of the Learning Design Team at The Open University, UK. It was a hot June day when Mary and I met at the train station…
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The pedagogical power of page-turners
What could be better than curling up with a good book? How about a little learning with your literature? Earlier in the year our unit ran an in-person event at the Open University Library, the LDS LINK event (Learner and Discovery Services, Learning Innovation and Knowledge for those who like two acronyms for the price…
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Ed Tech talk up North: reflections on ALTC24
Kathleen Calder and Shawndra Hayes-Budgen ~ Learning Designers This year’s Association for Learning Technologies conference (aka ALTC24) was held over three days in September in Manchester, England. We were invited to share experiences of using Miro to support remote teamworking and to launch the new ALT Digital Sustainability SIG. We’d delivered presentations for ALTC…