Report on 3rd Open CETL Conference
"Building Bridges" 24-25 September 2008
Background - Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
(CETLs)
CETLs were created in 2005 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). All higher
education institutions were able to bid for funding to set up centres which recognised existing
excellent teaching practice and invested in developing this practice in order to deliver substantial
benefits to students, teachers and institutions. Funding runs to 2010.
The Open CETL is a collaboration between the four OU CETLs: the Centre for Open Learning of
Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology, Personalised Integrated Learning Support Centre,
Practice-based Professional Learning Centre and Physics Innovations Centre for Excellence in
Teaching and Learning.
Conference proceedings
The "proceedings" booklet in the conference welcome pack (largely session abstracts) runs to 70
pages, evidence of a very busy conference!
Day 1 included two keynote presentations, a poster session (17 posters) and a choice of five 2-hour
workshop sessions.
The poster session was structured to give presenters 5 minutes to explain and discuss their poster
with a small group before the small groups moved to their next poster. After 5 such mini-sessions,
participants were able to wonder freely and return to interesting posters if they wished. Most
participants seemed to enjoy the novelty of the procedure and it probably increased the level of
energy and interaction compared with the usual poster session.
Workshop topics included student support, assessment, integrating research and practice and
"Building Subject Communities", as well as more technology-based topics such as Second Life,
Elluminate and how to create a new resource using online tools.
Day 2 offered a choice of thirteen 1-hour Short Oral Presentations, each shared by up to three
presenters, and four 2-hour workshops.
Community is a good thing
The idea of "community" (largely undefined) and its benefits (largely taken as self evident) was a
strong theme throughout the conference. It was noticeable that conference participants and
presenters were a good mix of central, regional and AL staff, and this may be taken as sign of the
bridge and community building that the CETLs have encouraged.

Keynote presentation: Denise Kirkpatrick, OU PVC Learning and Teaching – “Web 2.0 and
Learning 2.0. What’s happening?”
Denise Kirkpatrick gave an overview of the impacts of Web 2.0, such as new ideas about
scholarship and pedagogy, the rise of social networking and the changing patterns of
technology use from generation to generation. She noted Richard Light's assertion (Light
2001) that the strongest determinant of students' success is their ability to form and
participate in small groups. Web 2.0 offers tools that make it easier for us to support
students to form groups and to work together, thus overcoming one of the traditional
challenges of distance learning.

Keynote presentation: Geetha Narayanan, Director of Srishti School of Art, Design and
Technology in India – "Looking Back to Look Ahead - Learning Through and From the Human
Spirit"
Geetha Narayanan wanted to bring “Intuition, Imagination and Intelligence” back into
education. Much of the work that she discussed is based her local communities, e.g. a
project with children in the slums of Bangalore. Using sophisticated software to provide
sound and video alongside elegant text slides, she offered a vivid impression of the people
and places where she worked. She conveyed a clear sense of successfully using technology
to support community and learning at many levels.
Subsequent presentations and workshops often provided a striking contrast between aspirations for
web-supported community on the one hand, and on the other hand, the time and patience needed
for small-scale trials of the practicability and acceptability of particular tools and tactics.
The Second Life workshop nicely demonstrated the possible consequences of depending on ICT. As
an ideal-type Web 2.0 application, development work in Second Life has significant if low key
support from the OU. Unfortunately the Library computer suite was not up expectations and the
workshop's intention to run a session in Second Life was thwarted by repeated computer crashes.
The presenters were thrown back on their pre-web skills to improvise an account of what we might
have seen and done. (They rose to the challenge admirably. We heard about the serendipitous
development of the OU's Second Life activities, which seems to have been largely based on the
spontaneous decisions and talents of a very few people - a very Web 2.0 approach indeed. This
informal approach though has laid the foundation for the next phase of more systematic
development.)
"Subject communities" seemed to be the most concrete expression of the communities theme: how
to encourage students to co-operate, form groups, feel a sense of belonging in relation to their
course or their overall programme of study? Again gaps between rhetoric and practice kept
appearing.
One investigation1 of how far students perceived themselves to be part of a subject community
found that on the whole they don't – that is, they don't identify themselves with the student role,
probably because they have so many other roles and commitments. It is perhaps more important for
the OU to recognise the diversity of its students and to support flexibility, than to focus on identity
1
Isobel Shelton, Geographical skill development and the identity of students as geographers
and belonging. In contrast another study2 looking at students' use of the OU wiki to support cooperative project work, found that on the whole, students judged the wiki to be accessible and
helpful in getting the work done. In this case the technology supported a limited and purposeful
sense of community that was meaningful to the students.
Conclusions
This report is a very limited account of the conference, but hopefully conveys my overall impression
of creative tension between of large scale vision and pragmatic small scale implementation.
One of the concluding questions was, "Are we hearing the student voice?", but there was some
satisfaction that Open CETL has helped to create links across boundaries between disciplines,
faculties and staff groups. "Practice-based collaboration has made a difference". It has influenced
the design and delivery of courses. There was no doubt that the OU must continue to investigate
and experiment with new technology. Funding ends in 2010 but hopefully the perceived success of
the CETLs will be a foundation for more bridge building and more innovation.
Resources
Apart from webcasts of the keynote presentations, conference papers and presentations have not
been published online.
Open CETL home page
http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/index.php
CETL publications
http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/resources/
Keynote presentations
Berrill Lecture Theatre webcasts are available at http://stadium.open.ac.uk/berrill/ (you need to be
logged in to see the "3rd Open CETL Conference")
OU Second Life
For a jumping off (or jumping in) point, see the COLMSCT project page for "Open Life: Teaching and
Learning in Second Life" at
http://www.open.ac.uk/colmsct/activities/details/detail.php?itemId=478b5caf2c3f7
Richard Light, "Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds" Harvard University Press,
2001. Reviewed at http://aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2002/MJ/BR/gray.htm
Peter Blackledge
7 October 2008
2
Karen Kear, Collaborative learning using wikis