{"id":2905,"date":"2018-08-06T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-05T23:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=2905"},"modified":"2018-08-05T14:25:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T13:25:37","slug":"50-objects-for-50-years-no-16-blue-planet-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=2905","title":{"rendered":"50 objects for 50 years. No 16. Blue Planet II"},"content":{"rendered":"

After people saw the Blue Planet II<\/em> footage of\u00a0albatross parents unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic and mother dolphins potentially exposing their new-born calves to pollutants through their contaminated milk, the campaign against the excessive use of plastic gained a lot more adherents. David Attenborough expressed that he was \u2018absolutely astonished at the result that that programme has had\u2019 and noted the impact on politicians and businesses and the reduction in people\u2019s single-use plastic footprints. There are campaign<\/a> and activities ideas.<\/p>\n

The influential series is linked to the OU, particularly Dr Mark Brandon<\/a> and Dr Philip Sexton<\/a>. Listen to Janet Sumner interviewing OU consultants<\/a> to the Blue Planet II TV series. There is more here<\/a>\u00a0 and here<\/a>\u00a0and you can get an OU \u2018Oceans\u2019 poster.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is part of an OU tradition of producing widespread, lifelong learning beyond the syllabus. Its early modules, courses included material broadcast on BBC television and radio. There was initial scepticism from some academics and Conservative politicians. However, the OU was committed to using television and sought to employ innovative approaches. The programmes had to address both registered students and the wider public. The result was varied informative programmes which positioned viewers as interactive learners and presented learning as a problematising and experiential activity. As the first Dean of Arts, John Ferguson, complained, \u2018It is a common delusion about the Open University that we \u201cgive lectures on TV.\u201d We do not \u201cgive lectures\u201d at all.\u2019 The OU had its own purpose-built television studio complex at Walton Hall, which enabled it to produce, for example, a video which generated three-dimensional images of the brain for the Biology: brain and behaviour <\/em>course. For Haemoglobin<\/em>, Programme 1 of Biochemistry and molecular biology<\/em>, S322 (1977\u201385), Max Perutz used a static model, moving graphs, equations, diagrams, a clip of an experiment and a view down a microscope as well as lecturing to camera. Robert Bell, an OU lecturer, recalled \u2018seeing an early Maths programme shot on a rubbish dump, and certainly many of them involved ingenious working models that would have been unavailable then in a conventional university\u2019. The materials for Drama<\/em>, A307 (1977\u201381), included the transmission of sixteen fifty-minute plays. Samuel Beckett\u2019s Endgame <\/em>was given its television premiere on an OU transmission of 90 minutes in duration. Students were told \u2018Do not regard each programme as definitive … you should bring your free and concentrated response and your informed critical judgment\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charlie Drake in a dustbin in the BBC and OU version of Endgame. <\/em><\/p>\n

To develop students\u2019 critical awareness of how each performance of a play was an interpretation of the text there was multi-camera work in the studio and televised scenes from Aristophanes\u2019 Clouds<\/em>, in which Socrates appears as a character. In the broadcast\u2019s introduction John Ferguson is shown with cameras around him and there is a moment when both a Greek character \u2013 Strepsiades, played by Juan Moreno \u2013 and the Dean are in shot. Similarly, Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet was not presented as an uninterrupted performance. Instead academics discussed different ways of interpreting individual scenes. These interpretations were illustrated through performances by actors. How was all this received? Audrey Moore, who started her studies in 1974, recalled that the television programmes were often on early in the morning and she was \u2018frequently rather tired going to work\u2019, but one programme, on the Cuban revolution,\u2019 inspired me to want to sing and dance all the way to work\u2019. After nearly ten years as Vice-Chancellor John Horlock was able to claim that millions had, through the OU broadcasts, \u2018obtained further education \u201cby osmosis\u201d\u2019. Blue Planet II<\/em> is a stunning achievement, and one built on years of experience and co-operation between the broadcasters and the educators.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After people saw the Blue Planet II footage of\u00a0albatross parents unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic and mother dolphins potentially exposing their new-born calves to pollutants through their contaminated milk, the campaign against the excessive use of plastic gained a lot more adherents. David Attenborough expressed that he was \u2018absolutely astonished at the result that that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,24,67,202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50-objects","category-bbc","category-methods-history-of-the-ou","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2905"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2909,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions\/2909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}