Bringing free online educational resources to communities across Scotland

The Open Learning Champions project equips a wide network of people with the knowledge and skills to use the Open University's free online resources to help learners in a way that meets individual goals and is adapted to suit learning styles, digital literacy, IT access, time available and other real life factors that we all need to consider when taking on a new course or piece of learning,

How you work with learners in your community or organisation will be your decision but this online module will lay the foundations for you to be able to:

• Become familiar with OpenLearn - how to navigate the site to find relevant courses, become familiar with formats, course levels, duration and accessibility in order to then support your learners. 

• Support your learners to choose the right first, next and next again course

• Decide on the right level of facilitation. This will range from very light touch where learners work independently and you may check in from time to time, to where learning takes place in a supported session or series of sessions. This will depend on multiple factors to be explored later in this module

• Recognising achievement and celebrating success

• Understand potential pathways beyond OpenLearn and where to signpost learners for more information

Beyond this module you will be able to connect with other Champions and Open University staff through the modules online forum, monthly newsletters and bimonthly Champion coffee mornings where we can discuss new courses, share practice and celebrate success

OpenLearn & OpenLearn Create

It is worth noting that while much of this module focusses on OpenLearn, where the majority of materials are written by OU academics for the platform,  you will also find many useful courses on OpenLearn Create. The functionality is very similar to OpenLearn. The key differences are:

• OpenLearn Create courses have been developed by a range of organisations making use of the functionality that allows you to create your own Open Educational Resources (for more information see the 'Create A Course' should this be of interest to your organisation)
• Some courses start at level '0', very much designed for absolute beginners to online learners.