3,739 search results

Brain-inspired computing: a new paradigm for sustainable AI
Science, Maths & Technology

Brain-inspired computing: a new paradigm for sustainable AI

...the secret to greener AI be hiding inside our own head? Research into brain-inspired hardware suggests it might...Find out more about The Open University's Computing and IT courses and qualifications. Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. It powers voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, and chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Every time you ask a question or...
What does scientific evidence tell us about making our homes energy efficient?
Money & Business

What does scientific evidence tell us about making our homes energy efficient?

...opened or closed will greatly influence this saving on an individual home. Houses come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and levels of efficiency, particularly in the UK, where we are fond of our older, energy inefficient housing stock. We can give guidance based on data, but when it comes down to an individual home there will always be confounding variables that might mean...
How do musical instruments produce sound?
History & The Arts

How do musical instruments produce sound?

...Open University's Music courses. Here’s a strange question: how many different kinds of instruments are there? Well, the western orchestra has up to thirty different types of instruments. But that does not typically include instruments we recognise every day in popular music, or instruments found in other cultures around the world. It does not include ancient music, nor...
The trouble with teaching physics
Health, Sports & Psychology

The trouble with teaching physics

...Open University's Psychology courses and qualifications. Misconceptions about physics Teaching is not as simple as presenting students with facts to memorise. Students have their own ideas about the world based on their everyday experiences. For example, students sometimes mistakenly think that light and electricity flow like water or that cold is not the absence of heat,...
Ten top tips for writing a novel
History & The Arts

Ten top tips for writing a novel

...Open University's English courses [A cat looking at a laptop ] Just do it. Forget about procrastination. The time is now. Write early in the morning, before you have time to distract yourself with self-doubt and Twitter. Write the first thing that comes into your head, and don’t stop for at least 20 minutes. After that, you are more likely to carry on. Then do the same...
Learning how to learn
Education & Development

Learning how to learn

...Education and Open University Press, Buckingham, 1996 A Guide to Learning Independently, by L. Marshall and F. Rowland, published by Open University Press, Buckingham, 1996 Calculating and Computing for Social Science and Arts Students, by R. Solomon and C. Winch, published by Open University Press, Buckingham, 1994...Learning how to learn: 10.2 Other sources of help -...
Level 1: Introductory 6 hrs
Picturing the family
History & The Arts

Picturing the family

...opened in Britain in 1841. During the first 20 years photographic portraits were bought as one-offs in the shape of the daguerreotype in the 1840s and the wet collodion positive in the 1850s. Both formats came cased or framed and were designed to be carried on the person or displayed in the home...Picturing the family: 2.1.1 Card mounted photographs 1860–c.1914 -...
Level 1: Introductory 12 hrs
Researching Antarctic ice sheets
Nature & Environment

Researching Antarctic ice sheets

...Open University. Thank you for reading my first article here on OpenLearn. I’m part of a team of British and French scientists with a new study published in Nature about Antarctic ice sheet instability. Here is a Guardian article I wrote as an introduction to our work. I also recorded a video explaining our focus on Antarctica and the uncertainty surrounding the impact...