Bringing the Social Into Learning
What does being active and engaged/ing in an open world of learning really mean? The Open University has 40 years experience of bringing learning to life. Starting with TV and radio we drew previously excluded learners into the world of formal learning. In the last few years we have extended our reach through the widespread release of high quality open content through multiple channels and formats. However, access and availability do not necessarily lead to engagement or activity. Combining social media with open educational resources (OER) in our OpenLearn system, we have created opportunities for people to get together online in collaborative engagement around educational resources that support formal and informal learning.
Our experiences using social spaces and open media and content provide us with a growing understanding of: the dynamics of learners' interactions; how to get learning value from social networks; ways to support learners as they make their 'learning journey'; new forms of interaction that support learners; and ways of going beyond content search to effective mentoring and scaffolding for learning.
Follow this discussion to receive e-mail notifications whenever it is updated. Follow
Log in to post a a comment in this discussion.
Denise ended up coming to the conference in drag as Andrew Law, who did a fantastic job.
I really liked his approach, because (as I tweeted at the time), he showed is cool stuff, but not just cool stuff.
I enjoyed all of the keynotes, but one or two, who shall remain nameless, seemed to take up a lot of time with 'Ain't it cool to live in the 21st century?' and showing us cool stuff and stats about uptake. That's a start, but the 'so what?' in terms of a theoretical framework and some things to actually do in education, in more concrete terms, seemed missing.
Andrew's presentation was driven by a clear vision of engagement and learning, and also addressed some questions I'd been thinking about in relation to quality and business model. OU still drives a lot of students into its formal, paid, high quality programs, but it does a lot more with community education and engagement. The two things are complementary, not competitive.
Great stuff: more keynotes like this please!
Posted