Learning Journeys: the road from informal to formal learning

Josie Taylor

doi:10.5334/2013-08

Abstract

Online learning is now achieving recognition as offering a way for learning to scale. However we need to learn from the experiences in distance learning institutions. The Open University was established over 40 years ago and offers a unique experience in building a distance learning organisation on innovative use of media, originally through broadcast, then technologies such as video and DVD, to the current use of online as an integrating element. This paper draws together lessons from how the OU has made use of media and the way it can build learning journeys. Analysis then relates this history to an ecological model that has enabled a resilient and innovative approach that can apply more widely to other organisations seeking to offer online education.

Highlights

This paper provides an account of how The Open University in the United Kingdom (OU) deploys various platforms and media to achieve its mission of providing high quality, open learning by distance teaching to international audiences, and how those technologies are being developed to support a much broader conception of social distance learning than has been possible in the past
It is proposed that the OU has achieved worldwide success as a distance education provider because it has taken an ecological approach similar to that described by Jenkins (2010):
By adhering to the principles underlying its approach to the use of media and technology The Open University has managed to steadily co-evolve its pedagogy with developing technology in such a way that students benefit from innovations in technology with correspondingly sophisticated innovation in teaching

Summary

Introduction

This paper provides an account of how The Open University in the United Kingdom (OU) deploys various platforms and media to achieve its mission of providing high quality, open learning by distance teaching to international audiences, and how those technologies are being developed to support a much broader conception of social distance learning than has been possible in the past. "Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support. Some tasks may be easier with some technologies than with others, and the introduction of a new technology may inspire certain uses. These activities become widespread only if the culture supports them, if they fill recurring needs at a particular historical juncture. The question that should be asked is not 'what technology should we be using?', but the more subtle one: 'what do we want to do, and which technology will allow us to do it best, given the communities we are serving?'

Background

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