Personal Blogs

Lots of interesting things, some disabilities and conditions I'd neve heard of before and assorted bits of good advice. I'm a bit doped out, but every time someone recommended a link to something, I opened it in case it was useful,, and I now have a lot of open tabs. Which I will now copy in here and look at later.

https://help.open.ac.uk/making-the-most-of-your-learning-style

https://bionic-reading.com/

https://studenthublive.open.ac.uk/content/tackling-procrastination-successfully-23-april-2024?nocache=673f5f5ac870e

https://www.rnib.org.uk/living-with-sight-loss/independent-living/reading-and-books/daisy-guide/

https://habitica.com/static/home

https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/

https://goblin.tools/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2113850/Spirit_City_Lofi_Sessions/

 A really good talk! The slides are downloadable, and I made so many notes (a lot from the chat) that they have their own Word doc.

It also answered an underlying uneasiness for me - am I working and thinking at the right "level"? No, I'm not. Some questions will be examining our understanding of the module material. No more, and references to sources outside that will not count. This is, after all, a pre-university course. Equivalent of A-level. I need to dial back to the days of just referencing the school-supplied text book. Remember the advice I'm giving to  my A-level CS student, and follow it myself. 

Also, the advice I'm getting on writing and getting the length right will very much apply to writing slides for teaching for the WEA, though there I've been known to copy/paste from my sources,  and I can't do that here.

Actions:

Look into mindmaps, and a thing called Obsidian

Find how to get Windows to read text aloud

Book rec: "Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide by redman and maples" - downloaded Kindle sample. It's written specifically for the OU!

Another book rec: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Study-Guide-Andy-Northedge/dp/0749259744

I'd better learn how to take notes, then I can do so on the other things I intend to study.

https://help.open.ac.uk/notetaking-techniques

Will update this post as I go...

I am reminded that my method in Uni conformed to the adage "a means of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes oof the student without passing through the minds of either."

"Mind maps can be created using Microsoft Word but there are plenty of apps available that may make it easier. .... mind mapping software" ACTION: look for some.

It wants me to write on my textbooks!
But since they're in PDF... I need to get to know how to add highlights, comments, and so on. So I try to do so, and discover I'm logged into Adobe as Dave! ACTION: fix that!

Done. Note to self, I had to change my password, and it's now longer than it used to be.

I now know how to highlight and to add comments. To add text, I need the paid version. ACTION look into that?

 Plans start at £13.14/mo incl. VAT.

Voice notes? Not usually my preferred method, but..  "there are free software packages available on the Internet. A good example is Audacity, which offers the tools for recording and editing your material." https://www.audacityteam.org/  ACTION: find it, test it.
It comes from "Muse Hub" and looks like a very complete program! Will it do a quick voice note? Or would I be better using Google on my phone?

It'll do a quick WAV and "export" it to my OU files area. Good enough.

A good page on notes for languages, mainly about sounds. Since all I plan on doing here is Latin and Ancient Greek, that probably won't be relevant, but might help if I start taking DuoLingo more seriously.
https://help.open.ac.uk/notetaking-techniques/taking-notes-for-languages-students

Overall, not much there I didn't already know, but some tools to look up.