When the impossible's finally impossible, you can actually get down to what's doable

Everything's working today and is fast, even Mystuff and the wiki and my OU blog! (But the OU blog is still kaput - I'm sticking with the Blogger blog).

I got my results back for TMA02. I got a pleasing 72%. For TMA01 I got 73% so that makes 36.16% of the final score according to my calculations:

73% --> 16/100 x 73 = 11.68

72% --> 34/100 x 72 = 24.48

and 11.69 + 24.48 = 36.16% of the final score

So, to get a distinction, in the ECA I would need to get 97.68% (!!!) which (thankfully) isn't going to happen even in my wildest dreams, so I can simply focus on trying to ensure I get a pass (40%) and then anything over that is a plus. Actually knowing I can't attain the impossible lets me calmly work on what is achievable.

85% - 36.16% = 48.84% --> 50/100 x 97.68 = 48.84

To pass the course I need to get at least 40% in the ECA.
So that means that the minimum I can get (if I pass) is 56.16%

50/100 x 40 = 20% of the final score (and 36.16 + 20 = 56.16)

Hmmmm, I wonder if it's noticeable that I'm not feeling stressed out at the moment??

So my blog, wiki and FCC are all working again...

1 January, 08:05

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So my blog, wiki and FCC are all working again...at the moment.
Ah, how did you sort that out?
I logged on a number of times everyday.
But how did that solve the problem?
As far as I know it didn't.
But they're working now!
Yes.
Which is good news?
3 days ago, yes.
But today?
I'm not working on OU stuff today.
Ah...
Yes, ah...
Well maybe tomorrow they'll still be working...
Yes, maybe...

Email to my tutor

23 Nov 2008, 03:32

Edited by Jose Martel Penate, 26 Dec 2008, 02:33

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Hello Alan,

The guide for unit 6 says: (http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/resourcepage/view.php?a=25887)


The learning outcomes we hope you will achieve in Unit 6 are to:

- understand and engage with current debates about elearning practitioners as an
emergent professional group

- understand how systems of professional certification might apply to your own
development as an elearning practitioner.


I really have no interest in these outcomes. I accept that elearning practitioners are/should be professionals. It's obvious from the reading and from the existence of H808 that many other people believe this also. I have virtually no prior development as an elearning practitioner.

Will not going into depth on unit 6 be harmful to my understanding of H808 as a whole?

I've read the papers and looked at the websites but feel little interest in doing the activities. I've compiled some of the other students' work and will make summaries of it. But I can't bring myself to do my own from the original texts. Is this somehow cheating, or is this working smart?

Hopefully I'll find the next units interesting/relevant to me. I certainly don't plan on simply using other students' notes.

The FCC crashes don't help. Helen says they may not be the OU's fault. I only know the crashes are happening and are negatively affecting my ability to communicate with the other students. Btw, Jianfan, on his blog, says that he has problems

More evidence for SA4.2 - HowTo access/use OU resources when using a Mac

19 Oct 2008, 13:16

Edited by Jose Martel Penate, 19 Oct 2008, 13:17

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HowTo access/use OU resources when using a Mac
By Jose Martel Penate H808 081

I'll be giving my personal experiences as an OU student in Shanghai who uses mac computers to access and use OU resources.

First, a bit about my mac setup. When at home, I typically use a Mac Mini bought in 2007, with 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and upgraded to 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, running OSX Leopard 10.5.5. On my commute to and from work I use an iBook bought in 2002, with a 600MHz PowerPC G3 processor, and upgraded to 640MB SDRAM, running OSX Tiger 10.4.11.

I've designated the iBook as the principal machine where OU work is concerned; it holds the OU working files and folders. When at home I connect the iBook to my ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) via a TL-R402 DSL router. The use of Bonjour simplifies my mac to mac connections and I can then use my Mac Mini to work on the files stored on the iBook - so both machines use the same files. This effectively avoids having to synchronise data (I'm refusing to spend money on a synchronisation solution).

I hold current backup files on both machines in locked folders that I've set Spotlight to ignore. This means that when I do OU related searches the only file/folders searched are the current working OU file/folders on the iBook. I also keep a backup folder of all my OU backups on an external hard drive. When I remember, I also replace the current OU backup folder I keep on my mp4 player (an Archos 604).

I typically use Safari (3.1.2) as my web browser of choice for most things, but for the OU I need to share the workload with Firefox (3.0.3). For simply accessing/reading OU webpages, I'll use Safari, but for editing I'll typically use Firefox. For the blogs - posts and comments - I need to use Firefox or formatting will be ignored. For editing "notes" in MyStuff, I again need to use Firefox because of formatting issues, but to upload files, Safari seems to work better and I recently found out I can write comments while using Safari and formatting is kept intact. For the wiki, it seems that editing can be done from Safari but can't while in Firefox or at least is inconsistent from Firefox. I'm new to the wiki so I haven't had a chance to investigate this further.

Regarding FirstClass, I haven't used their web version since I installed the Mac FirstClass Client (9.106) application in my first week of study. I can't remember much about FC web version, but I know I really didn't like it; it was slow and simply didn't work properly. The desktop version is clearly the superior product and, while not perfect, it is perfectly stable, useful and even has some nice (far more Mac-like than Window-ly) graphics.

Another word about the blogs. I want to browse my fellow students' blogs from time to time, but it's tedious and can be very time consuming having to go to each blog to find out if there have been new postings. So I subscribed to the RSS feeds for each blog. Each blog has a feed for posts and another feed for comments. You need to open the blogs from Safari and click directly on "RSS" (not "Atom" right next to it) - I prefer to right-click to open links in a new tab, but sometimes it seems that these RSS pages only open properly when you left-click directly. When the RSS page opens, left-click on the "Subscribe in Mail" link. If you then go to Mail you'll find an RSS feed that you can rename and that contains the posts or comments of the blog you subscribed to. The blog posts will have the blog poster's name - under the title - when you open each post, but the comments won't tell you where they come from. To find out whose blog the comments belong to you need to click on "Read more..." to be taken to the blog itself, and then rename the feed in Mail. If there is no feed in Mail, check your Mail preferences.

By the way, there is a Mac help website (that I didn't find very helpful). It's at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stephen.mcgann/index.html . It seems to be more geared toward helping potential students identify which OU courses are mac-compatible. Apart from that, it limits itself to briefly commenting on the mac-compatiblity of various pieces of software that students may or may not need to use. I think the site will only be of any use to someone with little practical experience of using macs. The site doesn't actually give current students of OU courses any advice on day to day issues that arise while doing an OU course using a mac.