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25 Years of OU: 2009 – Learning Design
via GIPHY Before Jisc went all neo-liberal and started selling corporate services, they used to fund interesting schemes in UK further and higher ed. One of these was a round of Learning Design projects. With Patrick McAndrew I had some small funding via this route. Grainne Conole was the recipient of a larger grant, the OULDI project, which really helped kick off Learning Design at the OU. Now we have a Learning Design approach that is embedded in all module production. It requires designers to consider student activities using six categories which arose from Grainne’s work in her time at the OU. There are also a set of other tools,…
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25 Years of OU: 2008 – SocialLearn
via GIPHY Web 2.0 was big back in the day, and at this distance it’s sometimes difficult to remember how much it caused us to examine many aspects of education. The OU was interested in how platforms like Facebook could be used for learning, or more specifically, if one could create a Facebook for learning platform. We are tired now of all the “X for education” takes, but at the time this was interesting – social media was showing how people came together quickly around topics, how peer to peer learning was operating, and the way resources (eg YouTube clips) were being incorporated into informal learning. It wasn’t quite the…
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Honorarium etiquette
via GIPHY During the online pivot I have been asked to give a few keynotes, talks, workshops, etc. I usually say yes if a) I can do it without much preparation (the day job is kinda busy), b) I don’t have too much else on that day c) it seems like a helpful event. I don’t need the money from these gigs as I have a full time job, so I often don’t ask. I’ve mentioned before that I need to get used to making the ask though, and this is not really for me, but rather for people who do need to get paid for these gigs. I shouldn’t…
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25 Years of OU: 2007 – eportfolio
via GIPHY In the latter half of the 00s eportfolios gained a lot of attention and there was a proposal that all universities be mandated to provide students with eportfolios that they could take with them between institutions and employers. There was an IMS standard and several providers such as PebblePad and Mahara. The OU set about developing its own system (as it often does), called MyStuff. Part of the role of IET’s Masters programme (before it was axed) was to act as a testbed for the University more generally. So we developed a module called H808 The Elearning Professional, which had the new OU system at its core. My…
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Audiobook version of 25 Years
Earlier in the year, Clint Lalonde contacted me to say he was interested in doing an audiobook version of 25 Years of Ed Tech. He then proceeded to put together an amazing cast, with global friends and colleagues each reading a different chapter. And then Laura Pasquini suggested doing a podcast where people would discuss each of the chapters. This is now coming to fruition and Clint has set up a site, complete with snazzy trailer, and Laura has the podcast hosting sorted. The chapters are coming in and there is a release schedule starting Nov 2nd. This has been a strange mixture of exciting, humbling and embarrassing. I mean,…
