Free courses
- Why is the way something looks important? Text, colour, images, moving images and sound all interact to produce a user friendly environment within a user interface. This unit will help you understand the effect each software component has on the user and explain how a consistent and thoughtful application of these components can have a significant impact on the ‘look’ of final product.
- This unit examines the area of the brain based learning with a particular focus on the development of the young child's brain and is of particular relevance to those who work with young children. We begin by looking at the structure and functions of the brain, and the impact that sensory deprivation can have on these. We consider the implications of current understandings of brain development for teaching and learning, particularly in an early years setting, and finish by exploring the value of play (particularly outdoor play) in children's learning and the development of their brains.
- Designed products surround us all and range from bus tickets to buildings. This unit focuses firmly on usability and the increasingly important phenomenon of people-centred design. It aims to inform consumers of design (i.e., all of us) about this crucial characteristic of design. The unit is derived from the Open University course T211 on Design and Designing, but as well as stimulating interest in areas of concern for producers of design it might also provide an introduction to engineering, manufacturing and business studies.
- The power of graphics should not the underestimated. They can express information clearly and simply. This unit will help you to assess which style of graphic to use in different situations.
- Why does the way a page looks influence how we interpret the information it contains? This unit looks will examine how typography and images can be combined to improve literary creativity and allow a document to communicate more readily with the reader.
- What does a picture or image tell you? This unit is an introduction to analysing and interpreting photographs as social data. Who controls what the image is saying? You will look at how photographs provide visual evidence and how they can illustrate and support our ideas about society.
- This unit introduces some of the main themes and issues in discourse research using Martin Bashir's famous interview with Diana, Princess of Wales as a case study. Through this it examines the role of discourse in shaping social interaction and its psychological implications for the study of minds, selves and sense-making. The unit aims to demonstrate that in studying discourse we cannot help but study social life.
- The sun dominates our lives by defining our day, but how much do you know and understand about it? This unit will help you to explore the workings of the brightest star in our universe looking at its structure and the main processes taking place within it. You will also examine the phenomena of sun spots.
- Geometry is concerned with the various aspects of size, shape and space. In this unit, you will explore the concepts of angles, shapes, symmetry, area and volume through interactive activities.
