Well the first tutorial was good. Lots of people turned up, the most i have ever seen at a tutorial.
One thing that came out is that everyone is finding DD209 really hard. Hence the big turnout at the tutorial.
Lots of interesting content and helped my understanding a great deal.
Glad i went.
So tomorrow is the first face to face tutorial of the this year.
I always enjoy them. It is in Southampton, so only 20 miles away from home.
And a huge thank you to everyone who visits my blog... the counter passed 50,000. Very proud of that.
Got an email from my tutor, so that is sorted and tutorials are at southampton again this year, same venue as 2 years ago with DD211.
So thats sorted.
Well the exam tutorial this year was the opposite of the last 2 years.
For the last 2 years only 4 or 5 of us turned up to the tma tutorials, with suddenly 16 people turning up for the exam tutorial.
This year we have averaged 10 for the tma tutorials and only 4 of us turned up to the exam tutorial.
Hopefully everyone who did not come to the exam tutorial is well advanced with revision and confident for the exam.
##bloodya222.
I attended the first tutorial. In Guildford, a 40 mile drive each way.
Not great, now i have a charmiess email telling me the venue is now changed to Farnborough.
Great that adds another 20 miles on each way. One hour each way.
The OU really can stick a222 up their online portal.
This module has been the worst i have ever studied, by a country mile... and i will have to drive 60 country miles in each direction to attend tutorials now...
The tutorial was okay.
I am still none the wiser sfter it
Nice to catch up with Simon though
I am still very confused though.
This year looks like being very hard work.
Its tutorial day.
No messages on the planner to say it has been cancelled because of the storm.
So its off to Guildford i go.
First tutorial in six months and first of this new module.
Should be fun.
At lesst i will save some money of petrol. The 60mph winds forecasted for today will blow the car along the a3 to guildford...
So Saturday is the first tutorial of this module. A222 exploring philosophy
This year the tutorials are in Guildford.
It will be good to catch up with my cohorts from last year.
Looking forward to seeing Simon and Stephen again.
I might even get some insight into what ever the hell it is that the first A222 book has been on about.
Sorry i forgot to ask.
How are you all getting along with your new modules?
A222 has been much better organised than DD211 last year.
The module website does not open untill next week, but i already have a tutor and all my tutorials booked for this year.
Glad that is all organised, leaves me free to get on with all the reading...
So i enjoyed the tma5 tutorial. It was interesting and really made me think.
I am personally an international realist and so my tma will be in that context.
Nearly at the end of this module now.
I do have a question about how many errors or miss-prints are considered reasonable in module text books and the study planner?
For my module DD211, we have had the following:
TMA 2 guidance notes were incorrect
TMA 3 guidance notes were incorrect
TMA 4 guidance notes were incorrect
TMA 5 guidance notes were incorrect
Week 14 had dead links in it
Week 19 had incorrect information in it
Wee 21 had dead links and missing information in it.
Plus the whole online tutorial event on the 5th of October failed to work, despite us all wanting to do it because we had missed our first lecture because the tutorial booking system was a mess.
all this came after a update to the module books in June 2016, which i include here because some of the typo's are funny.
Serfs not surfs!
Does anyone else have this kind of level of errors in the course materials?
Or have DD211 this year just been extra lucky?
I am very glad to have waited before trying to write any of my TMA 4, until after the tutorial.
The tutorial was very good, and made me realise I was barking up the wrong tree with my essay plan.
I had taken the compare and contrast element to literally, in fact the tutorial matched the student notes and explained more clearly the structure of answer required for a successful answer.
I did notice though that as with my previous level 1 and level 2 worries, level 2 is much harder now and the academic language needed is more dense and specific.
So my TMA 4 will need to discuss the merits of codified and uncodified constitution and symmetrical versus asymmetrical bicameral representatives. Fused and separated executive, and the hard one, but important to define, majoritarian is different to plurality.
I just need to get on a write it now!
I got the email link to the online survey from the vice chancellor.
Feedback for how the complete breakdown of the tutorial booking system at the start of this module affected my study and student experience...
The online guidance suggested that it would take 5-10 minutes to do the survey,
I took me one hour !
I think I may have be very keen to use the free text boxes on the survey to register my opinions about how crap the whole tutorial experience was at the start of this module.
Anyway my feedback is complete, the free text boxes in the survey full.
How long do you think it will take the office of the vice chancellor to feedback on our feedback?
Hopefully quicker than it took them to sort out being able to book a tutorial online.
I am rather confused how they think the new system of having tutorial centre's that you can book into is better or offers me more choice than the old system?
I live in Portsmouth, so I go to the tutorial in Southampton. The next nearest one to me would be central London (80 miles away and a nightmare to park) or Oxford ( 90 miles away and a fantastical bad ring road to navigate) or Exeter (200 miles away and hours of sitting on the A303 waiting to move).
So my choice is the same as it was before, go to Southampton or do not go to a tutorial.
I would hope some of my fellow students were not having to make 200 miles ( 5 hour) round trips to just get to tutorial...... Hopefully.
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