DD209 Running The Economy : Week 1

Week 1

5 Oct

• 
  
• Welcome to DD209 Website contents
  
  
• Module guide Website content
  
  
• Week 1: Economics, recession and crisis
  
  Week 1's study has been completed. I guess if you're not keen at the start of the course when will you be. Hopefully, I will have finished Block 1 before the first tutorial and get off to a flying start.
  
  I'm really impressed with the course website. The tutorials really lead you through the aspects of the book that you need to understand, and the weekly revision sheets seem a great idea, although I haven't filled that in yet :-)
  
  I haven't done economics before, but this seemed a fairly gentle introduction. The sums you are asked to do are not difficult, but as with most things understanding the question in order to do the correct sum is the key thing.
  
  The course also seems to have been well thought out with no TMAs near Xmas, a two week Xmas break and also revision weeks. 5 face to face and 3 online tutorials and a day school also seems very reasonable.
  
  The OU website forum has opened. Two posts from the course chair, one post a welcome, one post inviting people to introduce themselves - pretty simple you would have thought - but already the simple act of saying hello seems to have already spread across those two posts and a new thread. Maybe this is not a big thing, but I like order, I may have OCD, to my mind this is just disorder bordering on chaos. C'mon forum moderators, tidy the forum :-)
  
  So, in general a good start, hope it continues like this.

DD209 Running The Economy : Website Opens

I suppose this is a 'landmark' of sorts, the website opening officially marks starting the second half of the PPE degree. Three courses down and hopefully the three most interesting courses to come, albeit probably the most difficult.

On the plus side, after some concern regarding the nature of the tutorials (due to the way they were described in the literature) there will be five face to face tutorials (1 per TMA?), 3 Elluminate tutorials, which in the past (A222) were always an adventure in PC & IT configuration, and a day school.

The tutorials are about a hour away, which is OK, I know some people travel much further or are simply unable to attend, so I guess with just a couple of hours traveling time I have been fairly fortunate.

DD209 Running The Economy : Text books have arrived & I have a tutor.

Two books have arrived from the OU for the new DD209 Economics course. Although they have a very fetching photo of a run down sort of shack in front the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpar (I suppose epitomising economic inequalities), they don't seem thick enough for a Level 2, 60 point course. Perhaps everything will become clear when the website opens, there may be loads of additional online stuff.

Still no news on tutorial dates, but I do now know who my tutor is. I do hope there are face to face tutorials as I really feel these add to the overall learning experience. Online learning can be a bit dry and sterile without a bit of human contact, and the online course forums can be hard work.

A quick look at the books says Part 1 is chapters 1&2, Part 2 is chapters 3 to 6, and Part 3 is chapters 7 to 10, Part 4 is chapters 11 to 14 and Part 5 is chapters 14 to 18. So that explains the 5 TMAs and why TMA1 comes so quickly and is only worth a relatively small amount of marks overall.

So, will give a book a bit of a read this evening and try and get ahead, at least on the first TMA, and hopefully things will become clear when the website opens this Thursday

FutureLearn

If your interested in some free short courses check out https://www.futurelearn.com/courses 

I have signed up for Marketing in October, and Java programming next year. 
Looking forward to some interesting courses and learning for fun without the 
pressure of assessments.

Could this be the future of further learning?

DD209 Running The Economy : What to read until DD209 starts.

My wife saw a book she though I'd be interested in and bought it for me.

"Why Nations Fail" (http://whynationsfail.com) is a great read and I've hardly put
it down.

 I would recommend it if you are interested in economics and politics, but there is 
also a fair bit of history and geography thrown in as well. It should certainly keep me 
occupied until the course website opens in two weeks or so.

Still no news on the tutorial dates or tutor, which seems late compared to the other 
courses I've done, but I suppose this could be a result of DD209 being a brand 
new course. I just hope it isn't a taste of things to come.

I guess I'm just impatient and I want to know what this course is all about.

DD209 Running The Economy : The start is almost in sight.

Course materials will be dispatched in less than 4 weeks.

Course starts in about 5 weeks.

First TMA to be submitted in less than 9 weeks.

But still no information from the OU about tutorial dates. Given the potential importance of the tutorials as the only human interaction with the OU, I think we should get a bit more notice of when the tutorials are planned so that we can see if it is possible to move existing commitments around these dates.

Fingers crossed that this information will be forthcoming shortly.