I started reading Unit 5 on the tuesday, obviously I was delirious from the work on TMA01 !! Then I promptly forgot all about it until now, funnily enough even though I should be reading my case studies I was eager to post a blog tonight! I think it must be like surrogate class colleague, whereas normally I would have a chat with a friend about the course now all I have is good auld trusty blog!
I read some of Mr Waba's comments in his group work for Unit 5, he mentioned he had no "feeling" on how to write, in University he was very used to the style expected but here he's not too sure. I agree 100%. I usually have a good idea what mark/grade I'm heading for but in the OU context I'm not sure. I'm happy with the work I put into it and the resulting essays so we'll just have to see.
Another surprise was the work I had to put into the reflection part, and what a challenge it turned out to be. i was probably over-confident having written reflective pieces before, the difference hear is that we are being guided on our reflection, whereas before its been based on my initiative.
Finally I think I am still finding the online context of our research a definitive challenge. I've never used the Internet for formal research, I am much more comfortable with books. The Internet is a great tool obviously but not somewhere I've looked for "deep learning" (Moon, 2001), [that's a TMA01 joke
Talk later
K
Comments
Blogs as reference tools
The culture concerning using blogs as "serious" reference tools is in flux, Karl. There are some very academic blogs out there, and a lot of academics are now using them to publish their thoughts, research and so on not necessarily in preference to academic journals, but certainly alongside this. The benefit, of course is that blogs allow immediate publication of this information while an academic journal publication needs to go through the review process, the rewriting process, the typesetting etc. and the information contained can be out-of-date by the time the item appears. The drawback for many academics (and I confess that I'm not one of these) is that the blogs aren't peer reviewed before publication. I would tend to say that if a blog is frequently cited / referred to in course materials, more general literature etc., it is probably a fairly "respectable" source; it may not be peer reviewed in the traditional sense, but citations etc suggest that peers respect the content.Blogs can also provide good indications of new developments, new approaches, what's going out of fashion and so on.
You can find nformation about educational blogs by searching - for example, one result I just pulled up was:
http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs (Top 100 Education blogs)
You can also look for acade,oc blogs by the author's name - for instance, Martin Weller has a very interesting blog, The EduTechie at: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/
Terry Anderson, of Athabasca University, blogs at me2U.athabasca.ca - http://me2u.athabascau.ca/elgg/terrya/weblog/
Marc Eisenstadt's blog is about to move, but the latest entry is at: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/marc/2007/11/30/so-long-ou-and-thanks/
I also enjoy reading Patrik Svensson's blog (Director of HUMLab at the University of Umea in N.Sweden) - Patrik's Sprawl. He writes in English and you can find it at: http://blog.humlab.umu.se/patrik/ - a lot of interesting links to other academic blogs from this one.
So, overall, things are changing. You have to use your own judgement about the validity of the blogs you draw information from, but I see no reason not to use them if you wish.
Does that answer the question?
Getting a 'feel' for the tone of writing
Hi Karl,
I've just been catching up on my blog reading and came across this post you wrote a little while before you started H800 I guess. I agree with you whole-heartedly about not being clear in what tone we're meant to write, not just in our blogs but even more so for the TMAs. This year alone, I've had lots of mixed guidance. On one course, we're strictly required to write in a professional academic style never using the first person. In another course I was advised to write in the first person because third person sounds 'awkard'. Can certainly be a bit confusing.
I suppose this is an example of when very clear guidance is needed. The experience has made me much more aware of the importance of including details in assignment instructions - even if you think something is implied, someone else might not.
Katherine