Personal Blogs

From Jack Wilson MM

Fig.1. My late grandfather featured in the Consett Gazette in 1917 on receiving the Military Medal.

A few months 'out of the loop' and I feel my knowledge on e-learning draining away - it is such a vibrant and fast moving area that I feel I need to refresh and update at every opportunity, so here I am again with H818 The Networked Practitioner.

There's a practice based element to this which I'll apply to an longheld interest in the First World War.

There'll be a lot of interest, reflection and soul searching over the 100th anniversary from 2014 to 2018. That war is relevant to the Europe and wider Europe we live in today, from Northern Ireland to Syria, via the Balkans and the EU.

I've just read 'The Sleepwalkers. Why Europe went to war in 1914'. By Christopher Clark.

More than any book I have read before on the subject this blows away any myths or propoganda - not least the fact that Germany did not start the war, that award goes to Russia with France's support. I'd have liked to study this period with the OU but the History modules simply don't accommodate this. I'll therefore be going up to the University of Birmingham, in person, once a month for a mamoth day-long series of tutorials and lectures. That's as 'distant' as it gets with very little online support.