This document provides notes and instructions for a workshop on getting started with open learning. The workshop was developed as part of a project in Scotland to promote open educational practices. It is intended to introduce non-traditional learners to open online courses. The workshop covers exploring open courses on the OpenLearn and FutureLearn platforms, how online study is structured, finding relevant courses, and the benefits of studying online courses collectively in a group setting similar to a book club. Participants are prompted to consider starting their own study groups using open online courses.

1. Getting Started With Open Learning
Workshop
These notes and accompanying Powerpoint slide deck were created for use with non-traditional
learners in workplace and community settings as part of the Opening Educational Practices in
Scotland (OEPS) project, which ran from 2014 – 2017. The workshop design was developed by
Pete Cannell and Tommy Breslin from Scottish Union Learning. These materials are licensed as
CC BY 4.0 (unless otherwise stated) and can be adapted, reused and remixed.
Background reading
There are a host of useful background resources in the OEPS collection. This workshop could be
used as an introduction to either or both of the short open courses ‘Supporting collective learning
in workplace and community settings’ and ‘Becoming An Open Educator’
Notes to accompany the slides
This workshop ideally takes between 45 minutes and an hour.
Slide 2: If the group is small start with introductions and then ask for a show of hands on who has
studied a course online before – ask those who say yes to share their thoughts on the experience.
Then ask for a show of hands for those who have used Google or YouTube to learn something
useful. Contrast the responses to the two questions – compare how we feel about informal and
formal study. Invite comments from participants.
Stress that in the rest of the workshop we are going to be talking about learning opportunities but
its appropriate to be thinking Google, YouTube experience mot school, classrooms and teachers.
Slide 3: Review aims of the session
Slide 4: Highlight the availability of courses on OpenLearn – demonstrate
www.open.edu/openlearn/ if internet access available and time
Slide 5: Introduce Badged courses on OpenLearn – has anyone got a digital/open badge or
badges? Explain about badges.
Slide 6: Introduce FutureLearn explain about the differences between FutureLearn courses and
OpenLearn Courses.
Slides 7 and 8: Show examples of introductory videos for a couple of current FutureLearn courses.
Slide 9: Us the slide to explain how study is structured and supported – short courses – flexible in
time and space – typically 3 or 4 hours a week.
Slide 10: Finding courses – highlight resources for finding where to start

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Slide 11: This is the crucial part of the session. Explore the possibilities for working together to
tackle an online course. The advantages of sharing, supporting and encouraging each other.
Picking up tips about working online and learning from each other. The OEPS project found that
the idea that this could be thought of as like a Book Club was persuasive and popular. Online is a
means to an end – learning can be social. These ideas are explore in more depth in the course
‘Supporting collective learning in workplace and community settings’.
Slide 12: If participants include people who want to take forward the idea of setting up a study
group then the last slide gives a prompt to them using the ‘Supporting collective learning in
workplace and community settings’ a means to do so.
This work was created as part of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project
(https://oepscotland.org) and unless otherwise stated is licensed CC-BY 4.0 International license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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