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We have run a couple of workshops recently as part of our Learning Design project. The slide below gives a summary of the range of activities we are doing in this work and gives a flavour of the approach we are adopting - which is very much iteration between user evaluation and development.

 Summary of the OU Learning Design Project activitiesAndrew Brasher has been adapting the Compendium software to create a variant which can be used specifically for learning design purposes - CompendiumLD.  Andrew has done a lot of work - including development of a more coherent set of learning design icons, and in situ scaffolding and support for aspects of the design process. The first workshop was a chance to test this out.  We had a range of people from across the university - a mixture of academics and those in support roles. The workshop provided a general update on the work we are doing as well as a hands on session using CompendiumLD. Some of the participants had already experimented with an earlier version of the tool; others were new to it. Feedback was generally positive, in particular CompendiumLD’s strengths seem to be in: helping to visualise the design process, make the process more explicit and acting as a shared language. These seem to be consistent benefits which are coming through the workshops and other evaluations of the use of CompendiumLD, which resonate with the findings emerging from the interviews and in-depth course evaluations we are doing, which suggest that these are important components of the design process. That said these are not the only aspects of the design process, CompendiumLD is never going to be the major bullet solution to all aspects of design!! However recognising what it can and can’t support is important. The next stage in the development and evaluation of CompendiumLD will be follow this with some more in-depth evaluation of use of the tool. In particular we are keen to explore to what extent users find the in-situ help useful.     Juliette White, who has recently joined our team, ran our second workshop, which was more blue skies in nature, looking at the broader aspects of our LD work and where it is going. We worked with a smaller group this time. I absolutely love this picture of part of the group at the workshop - deep in thought - they look as if they are doing an exam! The workshop included a range of brainstorming and storyboard exercises and the afternoon generated lots of discussion and some great ideas. We are currently pondering over the evaluation of this session and feeding it into the next stage of our developments - more on that in due course! Simon Cross, Andrew Brasher, Juliette White          

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