OU
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A F2F OU?
Some of you may have seen this article in HEPI in which the author makes an argument against the possible establishment of a city centre base for the Open University. I will say up front, I have no insider knowledge here, and as I’m leaving, no skin in the game, these are more just thoughts based on being a long time OU and distance/online learning advocate. The article makes a strange case, partly aligning their opposition to the move on the basis of CO2 emissions, which I’m not in a position to judge (but equally they offer no evidence for). Their argument is basically, if we all wish hard enough,…
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Follow the biscuits
There’s a bit of a mini-rant following but before we get to my ejection of the toys from the pram, I want to set out a general principle. If you want to know what people really value then follow what they do with the small scale stuff. All of those Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who want to disrupt school, or recommend dropping out of college? Watch where they send their kids to be educated. It’ll probably be some Montessori type institution with lots of face to face interaction, and then it’ll be an Ivy League university. As I’ve mentioned before, biscuits provide a useful metric for revealing what an institution values.…
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Voices in the open
I’ve been at an excellent OEGlobal conference in Edmonton for the past week. There was a lot of presentations about networks of open pedagogic practice, use of open textbooks to engage students, regional OER initiatives, and so on. It was impressive stuff and a significant advancement from the sort of solo-educator open textbook implementations we used to see. We were there with the GO-GN team, celebrating 10 years of that network. This was our largest gathering, with members from 15 different countries. Robert Schuwer gave a fascinating talk on the history of the network – tip to people setting on a project that may have legs, make sure you record…
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Exit strategy
Unsurprisingly, I’ve been thinking a lot about exits recently, what with Maren leaving ALT and me announcing my (not so) imminent OU departure. I’m going to start with an ice hockey example, so for those with an aversion to such things, you may want to skip a paragraph. Last year the Chicago Blackhawks let their franchise player Patrick Kane leave for the New York Rangers. Kane had been with Chicago for 16 seasons, winning three Stanley Cups. He’s nicknamed “showtime” and yet, he went to the New York Rangers for practically nothing this year. The reason? He didn’t want to go anywhere else but also Chicago wanted to give him…
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An OU Farewell Transmission
As they say, some personal news. The OU has been offering a round of voluntary redundancy, which I decided to apply for, and have been accepted. I will therefore be leaving the OU after 29 years. However, I’m doing what in the UK is known as a “Nadine“, ie announcing my departure and then not actually leaving for ages. In order to meet various commitments I’m not actually leaving until June 2024. So that leaves you plenty of time to compose either a moving eulogy or just the right side of legal slur for my departure. The reason for announcing it with soooooo much notice is that higher ed (and…
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Too much bloody vision
There’s a scene in This Is Spinal Type where they visit Elvis’s grave and after some failed harmonising, Nigel says “It really puts perspective on things, though, doesn’t it?”, to which David responds “Too much. There’s too much fucking perspective .” It’s a line that often comes to mind, replacing “perspective” with whatever there seems to be a current abundance in. Recently this has been “vision”. It’s a strange one, because I think we all say we want a clear vision from any leader in an institution. Maybe it’s just me, but I currently feel Vision Fatigue quite strongly. We have an overall University set of priorities. Then we have…
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The pandemic response and the OU
I’ve just had an article published in the OTESSA Journal, entitled “The UK Open University COVID Response: A Sector Case Study“. I wrote it last year as I was interested in the various actions the OU took during the pandemic. Lots of people in other unis came to us formally and informally seeking advice as they were required to shift their teaching online. You may remember I ran some drop-in sessions on different topics back in 2020. The OU also set up a research fund, developed teaching content and gathered resources on openLearn (most notably, the Take your Teaching Online free course). In the paper I categorised the different responses…
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Give me an M! Give me an A!
via GIPHY One of the things I have enjoyed working on the most during my 375 year career at the OU, is the Masters in Online and Distance Education (MAODE). I’ve blogged previously about how I was saddened when this was closed down at the OU. Since then we have continued to produce curriculum in IET, most notably very successful microcredentials, under the leadership of my colleague Leigh Anne Perryman. We have also been working on developing a new Masters in Online Teaching (MAOT). This will comprise of the existing course H880 Technology Enhanced Futures, then 60 points chosen from the array of microcredentials (or a module from the appropriate…
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Universities interpret change as harm… but that’s probably ok
We were discussing the new Open University strategy recently, one strand of which calls for innovation in teaching. This has been a constant thread in nearly all strategies that I can recall in my 27 odd years at the OU. And, to be fair, it is something the OU and colleagues have largely delivered on. However, based on my own experience and that of nearly all colleagues I speak to, the university (and it would seem, all universities), often acts to counter and thwart such innovation. From delivering all online courses in 1999, to establishing the VLE in 2004, to introducing Learning Design, to trying to establish microcredentials more recently,…
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It’s always about the biscuits
I was in a meeting the other day where we were considering some of the difficulties of recruiting student representatives to numerous panels. Someone commented that the shift online had removed one key element of appeal, which was a regular visit to the Milton Keynes campus. For students who aren’t inside the institution this provided more informal interactions with staff members, who they may have previously only come across in course materials. This kind of standing around the tea tray moment (I’m not calling it water cooler) perhaps then facilitated interaction in the more formal meetings that followed, which can otherwise seem quite intimidating. No matter how encouraging or welcoming…
