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Michael Gumbrell

updated the website

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My blog looks different !! 

i imagine everyone's student home got updated, so everyone's blog looks different.

It's just change Michael, it is not good, it is not bad, it is just different....

Do we all like the change????


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Michael Gumbrell

the end of history.

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i am coming to the end of the module now.

one more week of study planner, one final tma to write, one online quiz and the exam.

I have been looking very closely at fukuyama's concept of the end of history, that we are in a stable neo-liberal stasis, that no further events will be extreme because we have liberally stabilised. I am not sure I agree with that, especially as that principle seems to condemn the poor nations to remain behind forever.

Well now to stop procrastinating and polish off the final week of study and get the TMA 5 done. 

Permalink 5 comments (latest comment by Michael Gumbrell, Sunday, 26 Mar 2017, 19:06)
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Michael Gumbrell

errors upon errors

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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.

  • Book 2, Block 4, chapter 14, page 41. Tony Blair was elected in 1997 and left office in 2007
  • Book 2, Block 4, chapter 14, page 42. Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, not 1991
  • Week 26 audio transcript for “Political concepts revisited” should read “serfs” and not “surfs”
  • Week 26 section 4.2 the audio interview with Richard Heffernan indicates that in the US decisions on smoking in public places are covered by federal law. This should be 'state' law rather than 'federal' law.

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?



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Michael Gumbrell

grinding out TMA's

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Well i am not staring at a blank page any more, I have done and submitted my TMA 4.

It was very hard going, I have found the last 2 TMA's and blocks to be really had going.

But I have managed to grind out the 2000 words for TMA 4.

This module has been hard, I was really challenged by the jump from level 1 to level 2 at the start, and the difficulty has just kept rising all through this module.

What is disappointing is that the sense of satisfaction has not been forthcoming during the progress through this module, I find myself thinking more and more that 'thank F@@k that TMA and block are done, I will be glad to see the back of that block, and now I find myself thinking I will be glad to see the back of the whole module, I may have learnt on this module, but I cannot say I have enjoyed much of it.


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