OpenLearn with Bridgend College | OpenLearn gyda Choleg Penybont

Grammar matters because, combined with vocabulary choice, it is our main way of making meaning. This free course introduces you to one approach used to understand how meanings relate systematically to different aspects of grammar and shows how this deeper understanding can be applied to make everyday communication more effective.

In this free course you will focus on how to be a critical reader. Reading critically is an essential skill at university. It means being aware of your own purposes and opinions as you read and being able to recognise the writer's purposes and opinions in their writing.

This free course introduces the mechanics of effective, persuasive oral presentations, by giving you the opportunity to analyse examples and then create your own. Using resources such as TED Talk videos, you will see how experts deliver professional talks and famous speeches, observe what works, and identify how language connects ideas and keeps...

Diagrams, charts and graphs are used by all sorts of people to express information in a visual way, whether it's in a report by a colleague or a plan from your interior designer. This free course will teach you how to interpret these tools and how to use them yourself to convey information more effectively.

If you feel that maths is a mystery that you want to unravel then this free course is for you. It will guide you through how numbers are put together, give you confidence with using percentages, fractions and negative numbers and provide you with problem solving skills for your everyday life and the wider world.

From paving your patio to measuring the ingredients for your latest recipe, squares, roots and powers really are part of everyday life. This free course reviews the basics of all three and also describes scientific notation, which is a convenient way of writing or displaying large numbers.

Scientific calculators are a wonderful invention, but they're only as good as the people who use them. If you often get an unexpected or ridiculous result when you press the enter button, this free course, Rounding and estimation, is for you. Learn how to do a calculation correctly and get the right answer every time.

From politics to cookery, ratios, proportions and percentages are part of everyday life. This free course is designed to help you become more familiar with how figures can be manipulated, then you can check whether that discount really is as big as they claim!

Sport can place high levels of stress on athletes, coaches and others involved. If unable to cope with these stresses they may be vulnerable to developing burnout. This free course, Learning from sport burnout and overtraining, examines burnout in sport from various perspectives including both the coach’s and athlete’s perspective. Drawing on ...

This free course, Communication and working relationships in sport and fitness, explores the personal skills that underpin so much work in sport and gyms. We often hear employers refer to the importance of these interpersonal relationships or ‘soft skills’ in sport and fitness, and in this unique course you’ll build valuable insights into ...

This free course, What is politics?, introduces you to the world of politics. It is dedicated primarily to answering the question of what politics is. Although the question might seem rather simple, it elicits various, often contradictory responses. As you will realise, in politics as in much of the humanities and social sciences definitive ...

Protect your digital life with this free course introducing the essentials of cyber security. Learn how to spot online threats, keep your information safe and understand key topics like malware, network security and identity theft — helping you stay secure at home, at work, and beyond.

Have you ever experienced a sport injury? Have you ever thought there could be a psychological dimension to sport injuries, as well as a physical one? Sport injury is relatively common among sport and exercise participants, and while the physical impact of injury is often easy to recognise, the psychological impact is less obvious. In this ...

Build your confidence online with this free course designed to help you thrive in the digital world. Explore key skills such as managing your digital identity, staying safe, finding reliable information, and maintaining digital well-being — all while developing a critical, reflective approach to life online.

This free course, Gamified Intelligent Cyber Aptitude and Skills Training (GICAST), will help you to understand online security and start to protect your digital life, whether at home or work. You will learn how to recognise the threats that could harm you online and the steps you can take to reduce the chances that they will happen to you.

As a society, we are now almost always connected to the internet and rely on it for many different day-to-day activities. However, this dependency on the internet can make us vulnerable to attacks.

Engineering is about extending the horizons of society by solving technical problems, ranging from the meeting of basic human needs for food and shelter to the generation of wealth by trade. This free course, Engineering: The challenge of temperature, looks at the impact of changes in temperature on a variety of objects and looks at the problem ...

The possibility of water on Mars has captured human imagination for over a century. In this free course, The Search for Water on Mars, find out more about how scientists have found evidence for water in the red planet’s past and present, and what this might mean for the possibility of life beyond Earth.

This free course, Additive manufacturing, introduces you to its key concepts. It covers the fundamentals of the additive manufacturing (AM) process, the steps involved in creating a model and building an artefact, the materials and techniques used, as well as the design implications and the factors which affect the functionality of the finished ...

Engineering is about extending the horizons of society by solving technical problems, ranging from the meeting of basic human needs for food and shelter to the generation of wealth by trade. In this free course, Engineering: The nature of problems, we learn that engineers see the problems more as challenges and opportunities than as difficulties...

This free course, An introduction to design engineering, looks at the way in which engineers use ideas and approaches from the discipline of design thinking to inform their work. The complexity that people bring to design problems is introduced, along with some basic methods of dealing with such complexity.

Genes are units of inheritance that contribute to a person's behaviour and health. In this free course, Inheritance of characters, you will learn what genes, DNA and chromosomes are and how they combine to make the human genome. You will also learn how the principles of inheritance work, the effect that our genetic make-up has on health, and how...

This free course is designed to provide a background and understanding of tricky topics, the practical application of threshold concepts, and their connection with learning design, digital innovation and learning analytics. The course, and the innovative teaching tricky topic process which it explores, will be useful for trainee or experienced ...

Mae dysgu ar-lein wedi datblygu’n gyflym ac fe’i gwelir bellach ym mhob maes addysg, o ysgolion i hyfforddi sgiliau. Mae mwy o bobl nag erioed yn dysgu trwy gyrsiau ar-lein. Hyd yn oed pan addysgir ‘wyneb yn wyneb’ yn bennaf, mae adnoddau a rhyngweithio ar-lein wedi dod yn rhan allweddol o’r profiad dysgu.

This free course, Teaching mathematics, has been designed for non-specialist mathematics teachers of 8 to 14 year olds, teaching assistants, home schoolers and parents and draws on the established provision of mathematics education at the Open University. It can also be used as Continuing Professional Development by individuals or groups ...

This free course, Global perspectives on primary education, provides an introduction to comparative education studies and will compare and contrast primary schooling around the world. You will look into classrooms and hear from teachers, teacher educators and policy makers from a range of education settings and countries. You will also learn ...

Do you enjoy watching Shakespeare's plays and like the idea of finding out more about them? This free course, Reading Shakespeare's As You Like It, will guide you through some of the most important speeches and scenes from one of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies.

Do you want to improve your descriptive writing? This free course, Writing what you know, will help you to develop your perception of the world about you and enable you to see the familiar things in everyday life in a new light. You will also learn how authors use their own personal histories to form the basis of their work.

Have you always wanted to try to write poetry but never quite managed to start? This free course, What is poetry?, is designed to illustrate the techniques behind both the traditional forms of poetry and free verse. You will learn how you can use your own experiences to develop ideas and how to harness your imagination.

This free course, Art in Renaissance Venice, considers the art of Renaissance Venice and how such art was determined in many ways by the city's geographical location and ethnically diverse population. Studying Venice and its art offers a challenge to the conventional notion of Renaissance art as an entirely Italian phenomenon.

This free course, Business communication: writing a SWOT analysis, is designed to develop your writing skills for business. You will be taken step by step through the process of writing a SWOT analysis, with clear advice on selecting key information from a case study text, making concise notes, choosing an appropriate structure and using ...

This free course, Collective leadership, will give you an insight into the importance of how to be a more effective leader, and how to better engage and work with ‘followers’ in an organisational setting.

Gain an insight into facilitating meetings and discussions in the workplace. In this free course, Facilitating group discussions, you will look at some of the behaviours effective facilitators exhibit. Informative and engaging videos will introduce you to examples of facilitation in practice.

This free course, Retail marketing, explores how retailers use marketing to communicate with their customers, considering definitions of retailing and consumers, the basics of communications, before moving on to look at different forms of marketing communications and advertising used by retailers.

All organisations must find new ways that benefit both their stakeholders and society. This means constantly improving their processes, goods and services. In the 21st century, new ideals of collaboration, inclusion, and equality are challenging more narrow market-based notions. This free course, Understanding organisational value, will explore ...

Recent decades have seen an array of news stories where risk management failings have undermined an organisation and dented the credibility of its management. These failings have led to the demise of some companies – for example Lehman Brothers, World-Com and Enron. Worse than this, in many instances the failings have resulted in deaths and ...

Boost your commercial awareness with this free short course. Explore your organisation’s purpose, understand your role within it, and learn how different perspectives can enhance the value you create.

Caring for adults is an introductory course for anyone in a caring role, either paid or unpaid. It builds on what you already know to give you a better understanding of your role as a carer. It also supports your own well-being by giving you some ideas and information about looking after yourself and dealing with stress.

Mae gofalu am oedolion yn gwrs rhagarweiniol i unrhyw un sydd â rôl ofalgar, naill ai'n daladwy neu'n ddi-dāl. Mae'n adeiladu ar yr hyn yr ydych eisoes yn ei wybod i roi gwell dealltwriaeth i chi o'ch rôl fel gofalwr. Mae hefyd yn cefnogi'ch lles eich hun trwy roi syniadau a gwybodaeth i chi am ofalu amdanoch eich hun a delio â straen.

In this free course, Infection and immunity, you will be introduced to infectious diseases and to the biological agents that invade our bodies and cause them: pathogens. You will also learn about the immune system, the human body’s vital defence against pathogens. Along the way you will learn about the scientific method and how it has helped ...

This free course provides an introduction to adolescent mental health. The course is designed to encourage a greater understanding of mental health issues as well as to explore the variety of strategies that can be employed to support young people.

Are you a carer? Or do you work with a carer, or know someone who one? This free course, Physical activity for health and wellbeing in the caring role, is designed to give an insight into the demands, both physically and mentally, of the caring role and look at how taking part in physical activity can offer benefits to the health and wellbeing ...

This free course, Children’s experiences with digital technologies, is an introduction to how children use digital technologies, such as mobile applications, digital games and computers, and what they learn from these experiences. The course draws on debates about screen time to critically examine and present evidence about the effects of ...

Do you have a professional or personal interest in the mental health issues affecting young children? Are you working with children or are you a parent or carer? This free course, Supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing, is designed to give insight into the factors that are contributing to our youngest citizens’ poor mental health; ...

This free course, Innovation in health and social care: social and historical, focuses on digital technologies and innovations in health and social care and explores the types of innovations that are available and the impact this has on the individuals using them. You will also gain an insight into the potential advantages and disadvantages of ...

Social care involves the challenge of supporting people who, for a variety of reasons, are unable to function without assistance or supervision. This free course, Social care in the community, focuses on one important area of social care, home care for older people.

Mammals come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes, and yet all species have some characteristics in common. These similarities justify the inclusion of all such diverse types within the single taxonomic group (or class) called the Mammalia. This free course, Introducing mammals, offers a starting point for the study of mammals. It will ...

From the mouse-deer to the elephant, plant eaters come in all shapes and sizes. But how do they manage to flourish on a salad diet? In this free course, Studying mammals: Plant predators, we will examine the special features that allow them to extract their nutrients from leaves, and see how some plants protect themselves from these predators. ...

Microbes often get a bad name. Whilst some of them do cause disease, others play vital roles in recycling nutrients in the soil to enable plants to grow, and in breaking down human waste. Without microbes, we would have no beer, no yoghurt, no coffee. That's quite impressive for something too small to see. This free course, Microbes friend or ...

Do you want to discover more about how organisations innovate for environmental management? This free course, Organisations, environmental management and innovation, focuses on the innovations organisations are developing or using to manage contemporary environmental issues. It also covers how organisations are innovating thinking about ...

This free course, ‘Land grab’: an environmental issue?, explores how environmental problems are entangled with economic and political issues and offers tools for making sense of the complexity that results. The case of land grab illustrates how everyday issues such as food prices are caught up in connections that link different places, different...

The Open University has joined forces with MoneySavingExpert (MSE) to give you the skills and knowledge to master your finances. Packed with videos, audios, quizzes and activities the course covers all the key aspects of personal finance in six sessions of study that each take around two hours to complete.

Mae'r Brifysgol Agored wedi ymuno â MoneySavingExpert (MSE) i gynhyrchu'r cwrs rhad ac am ddim newydd hwn i roi'r sgiliau a'r wybodaeth i chi feistroli eich arian. Ysgrifennwyd y cwrs gan y Brifysgol Agored, gyda chyngor ac arweiniad MSE.

Each year thousands of pounds are spent on medications to treat conditions such as anxiety and depression. These medications often have negative side effects. Exercise is an alternative treatment that is low cost and has few side effects. In this free course, Exercise and mental health, we will look at the links between exercise and improved ...

Yn flynyddol caiff miloedd o bunnoedd eu gwario ar feddyginiaethau i drin cyflyrau megis gorbryder ac iselder. Mae gan y meddyginiaethau hyn sgil effeithiau negyddol yn aml. Mae ymarfer corff yn driniaeth amgen sy'n isel ei chost ac yn isel o ran niferoedd o sgil effeithiau. Fel rhan o'r cwrs rhad ac am ddim hwn, Ymarfer Corff ac Iechyd Meddwl, ...

An important aspect of personal finance is the way in which individuals and households manage their debt, how much it costs and the different types of credit they can or cannot access. This free course, You and your money, explores these issues, with respect to the wider, changing, social and economic context.

Panic attacks: what they are and what to do about them is a free course that should be helpful to anyone who experiences panic or panic attacks, for their family and friends, and anyone more generally interested in mental health and mental health treatment. The course starts by exploring formal definitions of panic and panic attack. These ...

Mae “Pyliau o banig: beth ydyn nhw, a beth i'w wneud yn eu cylch” yn gwrs rhad ac am ddim a ddylai fod o gymorth i unrhyw un sy'n profi pyliau o banig neu banig, i'w teulu a'u ffrindiau, ac i unrhyw un sydd â diddordeb mwy cyffredinol mewn iechyd meddwl a’i driniaeth. Mae'r cwrs yn dechrau trwy archwilio diffiniadau ffurfiol o banig a phyliau o ...

Although being at work during periods of mental illness can be difficult for those with mental health problems, most people with these difficulties could take paid employment if it were not for numerous barriers in the workplace and the wider community (Centre for Mental Health, 2013). In this free course, Work and mental health, you will look ...

This course is for people who want to feel more confident about their learning skills. Informal in approach, the course builds on each person's own qualities, knowledge and skills to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of learning and of their own potential. It introduces some core ideas about learning and academic study, and some ...