by Derek Morrison, 21 April 2011
Some time ago I posted Open Opportunities, Open Threats? (Auricle, 30 April 2009) in which I opined that, far from breaking out in a fearful sweat or reinforcing the status quo barricades, the transition to an open source MLE/VLE solution could provide an invaluable organisation-wide opportunity to refresh and develop thinking and explore different ways of doing things. Anyone open to such a “nudge” may be interested, therefore, in the Open University’s free Moodle 2 in UK HE event on Monday 20 June at Milton Keynes.
It may appear to be a minor thing but I’m almost as interested in how information about and signing up for events such as this is moving to the “cloud” – in this case the OU’s use of “sites.google.com” and Google Apps for Universities; a nascent trend in the making? More reasons for fearful sweating etc in some quarters I fear.
P.S. I find Niall Sclater’s blog a good source of information and reflections regarding the use of technologies to support/enhance learning and teaching at the Open University. For example, his xtranormal generated movie Some of the latest learning systems developments at the OU may have the most deliberately excruciatingly naff dialogue ever created but it kept me listening with an almost fascinated horror and fixed the messages more effectively than if two genuine talking heads had done the job. Alternatively, in March 2010 he also offered a useful reflection titled Educational apps or mobile-optimised websites? He has also initiated a number of “clouds” on the OU’s Cloudworks. Niall is Director of Learning Innovation at the OU.
