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This event took place on 7th April 2009
Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
From exposition to enabling participation: the OU’s learning journey
by Professor Andy Northedge


From the Educating Rita era of dense texts, weekly broadcasts, classroom tutorials and life changing summer schools to interactive media, online communities and access to unlimited global resources, the OU has been on a very public learning journey of its own. So what have we learned along the way?

Learning in Digital Worlds: What are we talking about?
by Professor Josie Taylor


The focus of my research has not been the learner, nor their technology, but the communicative interaction between these to advance knowing. Whilst digital technologies continue to bedazzle and bemuse, facilitate and inhibit, enrich and impoverish, it is still true that evaluating their potential depends on understanding fundamental human conversational processes. So what are we all talking about?

15.00 Tea/Coffee on Berrill Foyer
15.30 Opening Address by the Vice-Chancellor
15.40 Inaugural Lecture by Professor Andy Northedge
16.25 Inaugural Lecture by Professor Josie Taylor
17.15 Reception in Berrill Café

For further information on The Open University’s inaugural lecture programme visit www.open.ac.uk/inaugural-lectures

Click below to play the event (99 minutes)