More from newbie student Robyn Slingsby, not sure whether to applaud or avoid those who've already made a start on the course...
It was a bit daunting to see that although my course didn’t start for a good week or so, people were already chatting in the forums, saying hello and tackling the icebreaker exercise – to write in 50 words what excuses they find to put off writing.
What disturbed me even more is that some people had even listened to the audio CD we received in the post and made comments on some of the excerpts in the forums. This clearly means I am supposed to listen to the CD. But the course hasn’t even started yet! Cripes, I’m going to have to get on top of my game and get organised here.
So, more about the forums… When I last looked there were three separate forums relating to my course, the first one the chill out room, a “hello, and introduce yourself” kinda thing. Here, our tutor started us off by saying who she was and then students – those in my tutor group presumably – introduced themselves in a few short sentences. One common theme in the introductions was that everyone seemed a bit nervous; some even made reference to their first days at school and fear of being shouted at for being late/not doing their homework. I’m guessing this forum is where we talk about whatever we want, be it course-related or not.
The second forum was the ice-breaker, where our tutor asked us – in no more than 50 – words to explain what excuses we used not to sit down and write; a nice and simple exercise to warm us up. The third forum mentioned something to do with blocks. I think this means study blocks and refers to our source of study – but as I skim read my info I’m not sure. Some folk have commented on a couple of passages, presumably from these blocks, and how they feel about the writing.
And considering the course doesn’t start for another week, people are keen to get cracking it seems. While I have contributed to the hello forum and the ice-breaker I’m not so worried about the blocks one as there’s still time yet. But one poor soul did comment they she wondered if it was a good idea for people to go storming ahead and shouldn’t we all be studying together, when the course formally begins? It’s a good point. No one wants to feel stupid during their study and it’s easy to feel like you’re lagging behind when others are keen to storm ahead and lead the pack. Hmmmm.
Course website
Okay, from what I can gather the course website it where you get all your info – links to your tutor group, course calendar, those blocks of study I mentioned earlier, the lot.
Today I was chatting with a work buddy who started his course before Christmas, a 30-pointer Languages jobby. He showed me his course website and woah did it look different to mine. I assumed that all course websites would have the same look and feel about them, with links and tools in the same places. But oh no, they couldn’t have been further apart. This must be tricky for people studying towards a degree, with each separate course they study having a totally different looking website, which means leaning how to navigate from scratch each time.
