My OU degree is almost done; by December of next year I will hopefully have a BSc (Honours) in Computing and Systems Practice. In order to finish the degree I had to accumulate 360 points by choosing courses from an applicable list and 30 points from "free choice".

I had already booked the courses for February next year which made up the last available options from the applicable list and started to look around for courses that would deliver those last 30 points; preferably starting next month so everything would be finished by 2009 (assuming I pass the exams next October of course). The course itself has two Java modules; one of the basics of OO (and it was very basic) and one which starts to explore interconnected systems. It has bugged me for a while that I had to choose Java; I queried it once to be told "We didn't want to be tied to a single vendor", which makes sense, except, of course, the language itself is still (pretty much) under the control of a single vendor.

As I browsed through 30 point courses I had a surprise; MT264 Designing applications with Visual Basic.

This course will teach you how to design and write small applications using Visual Basic Express. You should be a reasonably experienced computer user - a good preparation for this course is M150. Software applications discussed in the course range from a very simple traffic survey application, to more complex applications that are linked to a database. Roughly one third of the course consists of important practical Visual Basic Express programming exercises delivered online. You’ll also use course books that use a design language similar to Visual Basic to teach essential ideas about object-oriented programming.

They are now offering a .NET course; using the Express editions no less. The proviso on course books is interesting, in that it's not a VB book; I wonder what they will send...