At the moment the Open University’s policy is to remove module websites in our Moodle-based virtual learning environment for three years after the module presentation. To have all the module content simply vanish after that period is becoming untenable. For our students the module website is where their learning activities are coordinated and increasingly where […]
Ok I’m not exactly comparing like with like here but I am very interested in the potential of ebooks as an alternative way of structuring learning experiences – particularly where there is a large amount of reading involved. With the growing penetration of tablet devices (ownership in the US doubled to 19% over last Christmas) […]
I’ve finally managed to install iBooks 2 and the example book “Life on Earth”. This was a frustrating process that took two and a half hours of upgrades and downloads, requiring the right versions of iOS and iTunes with various reboots of both the PC and the iPad. Arguably I should have upgraded to iOS5 […]
Fed up being force-fed a whole lot of stuff of no great interest to you in your university’s virtual learning environment? Want to view only the parts of most relevance to your own learning – and blend them in with your other interests such as news, weather and sports updates? The Open University is now […]
I’ve just had some interesting conversations at an event for new OU module chairs at Cranfield University after presenting on some of the possibilities of elearning for our students. One academic wondered how he could be expected to design courses for smartphones and tablets when the University was not prepared to buy him these devices […]
Tweetstats provides a great way of visualising statistics about people’s tweets – such as their frequency etc. You can also see your most commonly used words and export them to a Wordle. Thus you can very quickly see what people like to tweet about the most. Mine doesn’t reveal much except what appears to be […]
Year on year use of online assessment is nearly doubling here at the OU. In the last year around half a million quizzes were delivered to students in our virtual learning environment using a combination of the Moodle quiz engine and the University’s in-house OpenMark system. The use of the e-assessement tools for summative purposes […]