Recent Posts
Recent Posts Tagged With 'education'
Analysing the ED209 course results
Now that I’ve come across the overall results for ED209 I’m finding that they’re quite fascinating reading. For a start, despite everyone knowing about one of the questions in advance, 7 people didn’t answer it! As expected, m...
Success with Child Development (ED209)!
The exam result wasn’t supposed to be in until Friday but the scary message “course result” was there this evening. Somehow, no matter how confident you are, course results are always something of an unknown quantity and therefore s...
A busy day catching up on things
When you’re trying to run a life in two different countries like we are at the moment there’s something of a nightmare in terms of administration load that can backup really fast. This morning has been one of the days when I’ve trie...
Isn’t the Open University a bit lonely?
In normal universities you expect to meet loads of other students but the perception is that it’s a different matter in the OU. However, if you’re following one of the recognised paths to a specific qualification you’ll often find t...
Doing courses in a peculiar order
Thanks to the funding issues that the Open University are being hit with I find that I, among many others, am having to rejig my planned schedule of courses into something that can seem slightly crazy sometimes. For instance, to pick up a physics deg...
Low participation = high dropout rate?
Starting a degree at level two causes me the minor problem that I’ll be short 60 points by the time I finish what would have ordinarily been the final course had I started at level one. In the course of looking at how I might pick up those 60 p...
Is the Open University too open?
One of the great things about the Open University is that you can sign up for pretty much any course that takes your fancy yet that’s also one of the problems with it too from the student point of view. It’s fine if you know what you want...
The first human biology assignment
Compared to the Child Development course, the Human Biology one is moving along at what almost seems like a snails pace in comparison which probably is indicative of how over the top the workload was on the Child Development course. The first tutoria...
Why did ED209 seem such a dreadful course for so many people?
Throughout the course everyone seemed to be saying that there was “an awful lot of course” in ED209 but I found that I really didn’t notice that so much until the time came for revision. Since it’s a research led course you ne...
Choosing to learn about yourself
One of the advantages of the Open University is that you can do any of the level one courses without any prior knowledge. Surprisingly perhaps there are a whole heap of essentially medical courses within that level one range. For instance if you̵...
How many hours a week does an Open University course REALLY take?
According to the Open University it’s 16 hours a week for a 60 pointer and 8 hours for a 30 points but those hours include not only the actual course work but also things like course administration, looking at forums, etc. which is a LOT more t...
‘Tis time to be thinking about the next Open University course yet again
Although I just finished the Child Development (ED209) on Wednesday and I’m currently doing Human Biology (SK277) which started in early October, it’s actually time for me to be thinking about the next course yet again. You might think th...
ED209: the final 24 hours of revision time
This time tomorrow I’ll be having my very first look at the exam paper. Today it’s time for last minute skimming over of the material that I didn’t quite get around to learning properly up to now… There’s the TMA questio...
ED209 revision: young consumers
Young consumers seems a rather short chapter in terms of actual content if you go by the Erika Cox notes. It’s the third of the identity chapters that I plan to go over for the revision and links back to the other two extensively in parts. The ...
ED209: exam thoughts
Now that it’s less than three weeks to go before the exam ’tis time to start some basic preparations for it. The seen question is an interesting one in that you can obviously do a lot more preparation for it in advance. One key thing is t...
ED209 revision: first relationships
First relationships uses up around a third of the chapter in scene setting before moving into quite a structured format. In most cultures there is a small number (usually one) of people caring for a baby which explains the emphasis on dyadic relation...
ED209 revision notes: messing up the Open University
Real-life managed to interfere with my revision today so my notes on first relationships will turn up tomorrow if you’re one of the growing band who are looking for such things. However, I was thinking about the overall revision strategy for th...
The first ED209 “research” on the seen question
It turns out that the very first piece of research is working out if there’s enough ink in the printer cartridge as there’s getting on for 70 pages of text between the three articles included in the references within the course text. Thos...
Back to school so, of course, we’ll all sick
Sniffling, coughing and sneezing have been working their way through all of us over the past week or so thanks to to James & John bringing these home from school. Yesterday it was James’ turn to feel a bit off but now that he’s back t...
Time to really get going on the ED209 seen question
I’ve just been to the final tutorial for the course so there aren’t any more excuses for putting off the work for the seen question for the course. First off, was to choose the topic from amongst the five on offer. For me the choice was r...
All quiet on the ED209 chat… I wonder why?
Our own little ED209 group was quite active up until the start of the Summer but is still all but completely silent. Likewise for the ED209 forum on the OU site. Naturally, the reason over the last couple of months has been the summer holidays. It...
The OU sails over the ELQ abyss
One of the truly sad things about the whole mess that’s ELQ is that it seems quite likely that the Open University will end up closing its doors at some point because of it. Why? Well, historically the OU has attracted more than its fair share ...
Boy does coding data take a long time!
I thought that I’d be well ahead yesterday with the TMA but it turned out that the coding phase of the assignment took a whole lot longer than expected so I’m only getting around to writing up the results section this evening. You’d...
Expiring courses at the Open University
One of the problems with doing a degree with the OU is that it’s a very long drawn out affair taking anything from six years upwards in most cases. That long period in turns means that there can be quite a turnover in the courses available duri...
Do you read to your kids?
We’d a special interest in reading to our kids when we were in France and we wanted them to grow up knowing English as native speakers and readers. Of course, it’s not just the business of reading that matters in our case, it was the topi...
How much research should you do into what a course you’re thinking of doing might be like?
Aside from the very first French course that I did with them, I have always went down to the Open University before signing up for a new course and had a look through some of the course books. I’m sure that lots of people have probably done tha...
What should you consider when choosing your next course?
When you initially start on a study programme, it’s usually easy enough to “choose” a course in that the early courses you do are usually compulsory for whatever study programme you’re following. Sometimes it’s easy enou...
A creative arts degree next?
I have to confess to being one of those addicted to browsing prospectuses. Long ago it wasn’t really a problem as there really wasn’t much chance of me upping sticks to move somewhere or other just to do a course but these days it’s...
So extremely socialist that she’s anti-working class in education
One of the principal aims of the Northern Ireland education minister is to end the 11+ selection system and thus kill off the grammar school system. However, her thinking is extremely flawed. Yes, socialism is all about equality of opportunity but it...
Student discounts
If you or your kids count as being students then don’t neglect the massive number of student discounts that are around these days. One of the most valuable but probably least well known about are the software offers from Microsoft. Through thes...
