The main aim of this website is to synthesise some of the key ideas and research findings from the fields of instructional design, learning design and multimedia learning and to show how they can be applied to the design and development of blended and online learning in higher education.

More specifically I aim to:

If you are a learning technologist, instructional designer, learning designer, lecturer or teacher then hopefully some of the research, ideas, and examples shared here will be of use to you.

Why myBRAINisOPEN?

A few years ago I read Paul Hoffman’s fascinating biography of Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős (1913 – 1996); “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.” Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century who was known for his social practice of mathematics.

You can get an idea of what an interesting character Erdős was from these quotes from Hoffman’s book:

“Paul Erdős structured his life to maximise the amount of time he had for mathematics. He had no wife or children, no job, no hobbies, not even a home, to tie him down. He lived out of a shabby suitcase and a drab orange plastic bag from Centrum Aruhaz (“Central Warehouse”), a large department store in Budapest.”

One of the things that really stuck in my head was Erdős’ single-minded obsessiveness and his commitment to a collaborative and open way of working to continually explore new ideas:

“In a never-ending search for good mathematical problems and fresh mathematical talent, Erdős crisscrossed four continents at a frenzied pace, moving from one university or research centre to the next. His modus operandi was to show up on the doorstep of a fellow mathematician, declare “My brain is open,” work with his host for a day or two until he was bored or his host was run down, and then move on to another home.”

I would like to see more collaborative openness between learning technologists, instructional designers, learning designers, lecturers, librarians and learning support professionals. Finally, the phrase “My brain is open” also has a double meaning for me as I see it as referring to open ways of working: open education, open science, and open source.

My background

I am a learning technologist at the University of London, interested in instructional design, learning design, multimedia learning, educational research and open education.

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