I can send a paper copy of the assignment for re-marking. My overall grade should be un-ruined, I hope. It certainly can't get worse!
It got me thinking though, about what constitutes progress. The OU has moved away from paper TMAs, to the eTMA system. There are many clear benefits to it: not having to allow for the cost of postage, the time queueing at the post office, having to submit days in advance of the deadline in order to ensure it arrives on time, and so on. But, when it all goes wrong, there is no way to sort the issue it seems. So something has gone wrong with the system, resulting in half my assignment going astray. Rather than being able to resubmit via the same system, I now have to revert to old methods. I have to print my assignment, and post it, and my tutor will have to post it back once he has marked it. So is that real progress?
Say it was a new process that had completely replaced the old process. What if we were unable to go back to the old ways? What if the postal system didn't exist anymore; if e-mails and eTMAs and text messages and all the rest had completely replaced it? Then the new systems would HAVE to develop further to fix the mistakes. Take Sky TV. We have Sky TV. We pay a TV license as well as a Sky bill. Normal TV is what, channels 1-5 ish? But Sky - an improved service in terms of the number of available channels - completely replaces the normal TV. So when our Sky box broke the other week, we didn't go back to Channels 1-5; we went to nothing. When we have a power cut the only thing we can 100% rely on is a candle - or some form of fire. A torch is great provided it has batteries. When you were planning to pay a bill online, and then your bank account details are 'temporarily unavailable', you end up having to rush into town to avoid a twenty quid fine for late payment, and pay the bill face to face. The click of a button can send information to the wrong person, or complete an unintended task. The chances of me writing someone a letter, and then addressing it to someone else, and actually posting it, are remarkably slim compared to me doing the same thing by text message. It doesn't, but I feel sure progress should include the ability to use the new thing to fix whatever went wrong. Not reverting back to the thing that the new thing was meant to improve! Wow, that sentence hardly even makes sense to me! But I know what I mean.
Give us 100 years and we'll all be back sitting round camp fires, producing our own food and building our own homes. I was born 100 years too soon I think. Fun as it is to watch the regression of a progression, I'd rather just get straight to the end point and be done with it.
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By the time we are sitting around campfires etc, humanity will have undergone some very nasty changes as a result of over-population, food insecurity, resource wars and the like. Such a mess! Fortunately the sea levels should rise sufficiently to cover much of it. Take to the hills if you are still around, brush up on the old hunter-gatherer skills and enjoy the glow of the camp fire!
It's worth keeping hard copies of anything worthwhile because, should the above scenario come to pass, the electricty will long ago have gone down!
It's being so cheerful that keeps me going!
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Well I'll be sitting by my campfire before the nasty changes come about. But yes... you are right, in as much as change requires drastic pre-stuff. Ultimately, it does seem to me that simple is best though, as it's what we all revert to come crisis - which is what I find interesting. Just look at what happens to communities when a natural disaster strikes. Yes, there are horrible consequences for individuals that lose people they care about, of course, but what of all the other hundreds of people, who suddenly pull together out of nowhere to make the best of a crappy deal. It strikes me, that when the going gets tough, we all revert to to 1800s lifestyles. Save the nits, mind.