The first thing I did was sign up for a couple courses to have a good look at how everything works and immerse myself in the experience.
So how does it work?
Like most of these kinds of services you sign up for a free account and then sign up for individual courses through that account. Open2Study uses a "four module" format for most of it's courses. You are able to complete one module a week over 4 weeks and very few are self-paced (which I will deal with below). Courses which are not self-paced open assessments at the rate of one module per week.
You apply for courses as they are announced. If you miss an application for the current course, you will have to wait until the next session of that course is announced in order to join. Once you have joined however, you can complete open modules up until the closing date. This means that while you can't "jump ahead" you can catch up if you need to leave a module until later.
Each module consists of a number of videos delivered by a qualified teacher/instructor to be watched each week.. Once you are signed up for a course you will receive access to all of the videos and you can watch them as many times as you like at any time you like. After the course completes you are also given access to the videos for a limited period of time.
Most videos are followed by a single multiple choice question that is not used in your assessment.
When a module is opened to assessment you will then be given access to 5 multiple choice questions for that module. You will have 3 attempts at these questions and the best of these 3 scores will be used for your assessment score.
You need a grade of 60% in order to pass a module (3/5).
To pass the course you have to get an overall score of 60% (12/20). You are allowed to miss one module out of the four but this means you must score high enough on the other modules to still achieve an overall score of 12/20. They do not take into account that you missed a module.
If you pass a course you will be sent a printable certificate via email. If you fail a course you are able to sign up for the course again in the next round.
Some modules have a "Self Paced" banner across the top corner. You can apply for these courses at any time (you don't have to wait for it to "open") and also complete them as fast or as slow as you would like.
What courses are there?
There are currently 21 courses on offer and when I first started looking at the site there was only 6. They are coming out with about 3 new courses every 5 weeks so the collection is steadily growing.
You can see all the courses currently on offer here.
How does this fit in with teacher PD?
There are a wide range of courses on offer that are education related including specific education topics, psychology and I.T. based courses.
Some of the topics I looked at are obviously aimed at high school leavers. I signed up for the course and just dropped out after looking at the videos and it was obvious that I wasn't going to learn anything new. They offered me a different perspective to reflect on the information I already have on the subject but by and large I didn't learn anything new.
Unfortunately, while I found it useful to watch the video, there was rarely anything in these courses that made me reflect on anything I did in any really meaningful way. Some others however allowed me to brush up on areas of study I haven't been involved in since university and they provided a fresh perspective that really made me think.
Other courses actually taught me a lot. They contained up-to-date information that taught me a thing or two and really gave me pause to think on and how it relates to the way I teach or interact with colleagues and the greater educational community.
In the end I found it a little hit and miss so until you sign up for something you won't really know what you're getting. This seems to be only a matter of an inconvenience though and it's not going to damage you in any way if you sign up and then realise that the course just isn't for you.
What didn't I like?
Having ventured into video myself, I can see some, but by no means all, of the presenters struggling in the same way that I still sometimes do. They have a bit of a problem relating to the fact that the camera isn't really a camera, it's a whole lot of people behind the lens. This makes some of them a little disengaging to watch or listen to and staying engaged with the topic through them can be a little bit of a "hard slog" at times. The information is good and useful but it's just clear that they aren't comfortable with the camera yet.
Other than that I generally look forward to seeing what courses they will bring out next but I do have to accept that the new ones aren't always relevant to me as a teacher.
Open2Study Vs other online PD.
One of the largest complaints we receive from people completing online PD is that the lack of people to discuss the issues with can be a very limiting factor, especially for CRTs who aren't in schools every day. An online PD that's supposed to take 3 weeks sees them taking 5 or 6 simply because they lack enough collegial support to straighten things out in their heads.
These courses are pretty sharp and to the point and I didn't really find this an issue. They aren't trying to enlighten you on an in-depth level, just help you come to grips with certain aspects of that they are teaching. They keep the topics quite well defined and don't wander into the peripheries that can make these things confusing. Video helps in this respect because it's got to be watchable, not continue on for 3 hours about every little nook and cranny like document-based PD can.
To sum it all up.
Like anything of this nature it's going to be of more use to some than to others. It's a while since I started exploring Open2Study and I'm still going back occasionally, looking to see if anything interesting has come up. Despite the negatives I see the fact that I am staying interested means it's probably well worth keeping an eye on.
A lot of the stuff isn't rocket science by any means but I have learnt new things and it's provided a reason to reflect on what I already know on a number of occasions too.
I recommend at least checking it out once or twice ;).
regards,
Mel.
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