Blandford Forum Camera Club

T189 Digital Photography: an Open University course
A report by Marilyn Peddle

When a new short course ‘T189 Digital Photography: creating and sharing better images’ was introduced in May by the OU, I quickly signed up. After the pressure of studying for a degree (Information and Communication Technologies) I felt this was a course I would enjoy and which would help me understand the world of digital photography.

This first presentation of the course was a relatively new venture for the OU as the emphasis was on practical learning with written work and reading kept to a minimum.

The course ran over 10 weeks with approximately 10 hours per week study/practical work. Photographs were uploaded to a secure sharing site, ‘Open Studio’ which is similar to http://www.flickr.com and was a major part of the course. We could upload 10 images per week and students were expected to critically evaluate the photos.

So what did I get from the course?

• A copy of Photoshop Elements 5 to keep was included in the course fee.
• A DVD of instructional movies on using Elements 5 and producing an end of course portfolio.
• Access to the ‘Open Studio’ photo sharing website for the duration of the course.
• T189 website to access latest news, coursework and resources for the course.
• ‘First Class’ conferencing, which comes on an online applications CD. ‘First Class’ includes moderated forums and accesses all the OU’s facilities. The course has its own moderated forums which create lively discussion on problems with coursework or questions on the subject, or just general chat for students and tutors.

The details of the course are online on the OU website at http://www3.open.ac.uk/coursereviews/course.aspx?course=T189 the comments below cover what I got out of the course and my reflections looking back.

We downloaded our reading for the week covering different aspects of photography. I found this interesting, reasonable to cope with and I learned a lot about aspects of the technology and taking photographs. The documents could be printed to keep.

There was a weekly practical assignment for practicing the principles learned that week. The images were uploaded for students to evaluate, plus any other images that we wanted to show and get feedback on. We were expected to evaluate other students work each week; this was the core of the course and it was essential to make time to look at others photos on the site. Although the good photos attracted most comment, there was a good balance of feedback and it made me look at my photos differently. The more you put into this part of the course the more you get out of it.

There was comprehensive information on tagging and sorting images in Elements 5 which I found very useful. Many times I tried to find a particular photo taken last year and spent ages trying to find it! I found the organising part of Elements very useful.

I took photos ranging from portraits to landscapes and subjects that were new to me. By the end of the course my images had improved and I had even managed to understand my camera more; not just point and shoot, but changing the settings to suit the subject.

The students were a mixture of expert photographers and complete beginners; I’m not sure what the experts gained except the sharing part. Most students were very positive of the course and there is a thriving group on flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/375767@N23/ continue to share photos.

The course included a computer marked assignment. This was a multiple choice question paper which is completed and marked online half way through the course. There was a final assessment where we produced a portfolio of ten photos as an Adobe Acrobat slide show and answered a few short questions on the images taken. We were shown how to do this through the DVD’s and tutor help on ‘First Class’. Also, we presented our photos to the students on ‘Open Studio’ for them to help us choose the best ones and how we could improve them.

I was pleased to get a good pass and my only criticism is that we didn’t get feedback on individual photos in the final portfolio, only overall comments. The feedback said something like, ‘you had 8 very good images and 2 not as good’; you were left wondering which were which!

It was a busy 10 weeks but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It went too fast and I would like to do it again! The students are already pressuring the OU to produce a second level course and I hope it happens. The OU listens to what students’ want; the web technologies courses came about through student pressure.

If you would like more information on the course or the OU I will be happy to answer any questions.

Marilyn Peddle