So, this week Was for many OU students the week of results. 60 credit courses that started last October had their results back this week. It formally brings the academic year to an end. In the end I did not blog as much as I had hoped about U101, as I simply got too busy with life, work and study.

My summary of the course is that overall it is a really solid design. I liked the flow of the module and the content in the different sections.

Things that particularly stood out for me were:

The practical level of the course. This was a really hands on module that got us prototyping and working on real stuff. The assignments all involved design and got us designing with other people.

The content was fascinating and useful. Exploring the history of design thinking and foundations of it was really powerful and was very far removed from what I was expecting, which was a pile of Post It notes and some simplistic creativity techniques.

The day schools in central London were really excellent. I enjoyed the mixture of design challenges combined with looking at key concepts from the course. It was great to meet fellow students and share how we were getting on.

The student social scene. Having done 14 OU modules in the past, this one was the one that I felt most connected to fellow students. We had a really active WhatsApp group and a reasonably active Facebook group and these allowed us to connect and work together through the course.

Things I did not particularly like:

I thought the course design could be adapted to allow the social element happen within the confines of the OU systems. The three forums available burst into life at the beginning of the course and then gradually got quieter.

Student collaboration. I know the OU struggles to get students to work together on joint projects, but in the real world collaborative design is important and so I definitely think one or more assignments should be “forcing” students to work together. It is not impossible and have seen it done well on other modules I have taken.

Open Design Studio. The software that was used throughout the course was pretty clunky. Whilst I was working on a Mac and had no issues, many of my peers had a tough time with file disappearing or being corrupted. If I was the OU, I would turn this into a HTML 5 online cloud platform like Kumu.

I am really happy to have taken this course, I have definitely learnt a lot from the content, my tutor and peers. For people looking to raise their capacity to problem solve, collaborate or design, this module is a worthwhile investment.

The next year of my journey on The BSc Design & Innovation degree is a specialisation module, as I am doing the environmental track, I will be starting U116 “Environment: Journeys through a changing world” in a few months time.