DD303 – week 15

I’ve finally managed to finish my notes for chapter 10 today, although I have read on into chapters 11 and 12 so I’m not quite as far behind the schedule as that might imply. In fact, I think I’m still pretty much on schedule at the moment, largely thanks to last week proper (17) having been a review week. I did think at the start of the course the number of review and ‘holiday’ weeks was very generous compared to those given on the level 2 OU courses I’ve done previously – but I’ve found I’ve needed them to stay on track so far this year.

Chapter 10 was useful background when preparing the project proposal for TMA03 too. It wasn’t until I’d read the chapter that the different between internal and external representations became clear enough for me to properly understand the offprints for the project I’ve chosen – T4, on the representation of numerical information.

As is my custom, I’m now checking my OU homepage hourly to see if my TMA has been marked. Knowing that there’s really no point in doing so until I get the email saying it’s ready to collect doesn’t deter me in the least from still checking regularly. You can never tell, can you?  I suspect that the OU have had to invest in a whole roomful of servers just to cope with the demand from students who, like me, also have this bad habit!

Somehow, collecting eTMAs just isn’t dramatic enough. When TMAs were returned by post, first of all you had to nerve yourself up to open the envelope. I found that it was possible to open them up so you could look at your tutor’s comments before you looked at your mark. Now, you get to see the mark (whether you want to or not) straight away. I’d really like an alert to come up first – something along the lines of ‘Are you sure?’, followed by another one saying ‘Are you really sure?’, followed by ‘OK then – but don’t say I didn’t warn you’ would be perfect.

A suitable musical accompaniment needs to be provided as well. May I suggest “Thunder and Rain”, by Graham Parker and the Rumour, which has been playing in my head all week and I still can’t quite dislodge it even though it’s late on Saturday night. “… give me the strength to go out there”.