Learning in a digital age/LiDA104/Orientation/Platform

At the OERu, we believe that 21st century learners will be better prepared for digital futures by learning how to learn on the Internet rather than learning via a single, closed website. The OERu technology platform is a network of personal learning environments that connects participants with online learning resources and with each other.

The OERu technology environment

At the OERu, “open” means that learners should be able to access all the course learning materials without the need to register or set a password. (This is in contrast to many websites that require users to register an account before they can even see the content.) At OERu, learners can view all our content and community contributions without the need to register an account. There are, however, good reasons for you to register: you will need to create an account before posting contributions to any of our hosted websites (we do not think anonymous commenting fosters community, and this also helps minimise spam postings). By registering, you can also gain better control of your engagement with the OERu and we’ll provide various ways for you to customise your interactions with us.

The OERu learning environment is comprised of three main components:

1. An open course website hosted on course.oeru.org which contains all the learning materials - for example this site: http://course.oeru.org/lida104/
2. A collection of “best of breed” open source interaction technologies where learners can post comments and interact with each other. These technologies are listed in the OERu technology wheel below.
3. A summary course feed which collects relevant posts and contributions from these distributed interaction technologies in a central place on each course website - see for example the LiDA104 course feed.

Activity: Bookmarking tour of the OERu distributed technology platform

Purpose: To gain an overview of the OERu learning environment by visiting and bookmarking the component websites for future access.

Resources

1. Anatomy of the OERu course feed
2. How to bookmark or add a website to your favourites using:
   • Google Chrome
   • Firefox
   • Safari
   • Internet Explorer
   • Microsoft Edge

Tasks

1. Visit each of the websites listed in the table below and add them to your browser bookmarks / favourites. (Consider creating an "OERu" folder for saving these bookmarks.)
2. Study the Anatomy of the OERu course feed graphic.
3. Visit the LiDA104 Course feed and see if you can identify at least three different sources for posts in the feed.

Site and url	Purpose
Course site http://course.oeru.org/lida104/	Learning materials, course instructions, activities and assesssments
Social media network https://mastodon.oeru.org	Course comments using hashtags and backchannel conversations for the OERu learning community
Discussion forums https://forums.oeru.org	Course discussion activities and website for posting questions
Annotations https://web.hypothes.is/	Annotate and discuss any website page
Resource bank https://bookmarks.oeru.org	Share links to useful open access resources you find online in support of your learning