Personal Blogs

I am impressed by the dedication and commitment of many students and I was struck by one particular example yesterday.  I had a tutorial yesterday evening and all the students who attended were very engaged and this is impressive in itself as they have busy lives and online tutorials are useful but not always easy ways for students to study as they require a great deal of concentration.  One student joined the tutorial from China and he said it was 3 am there and he had especially set his alarm to wake up for it.  He only used the textbox function rather than the microphone as his wife was sleeping in the next room (his choice seemed reasonable in the circumstances).  He made a very useful contribution despite having only just woken up.

I offered an Elluminate session last night for students on E852 and I was extremely impressed by how committed students were.  The session took place at 9pm GMT but students attended from Russia (where it was a 1 am start) and Korea (6am).  Even for those in Europe, it was late by the finish (well after 11 pm). Even for the few in Britain, the timing was not necessarily convenient with aspects of family life providing distractions.

So, it seems that many students are willing to devote time for the chance to interact in real time by the best methods we have that are practical.