DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - TMA01 Marked and Returned

I just managed a borderline good/excellent mark, which was a huge relief as I put a lot of effort in to this first TMA and a lower score would have been discouraging.

Some encouraging comments from my tutor, although apart from 2 referencing errors I'm not sure where the other marks were lost.

I think the next TMA is going to be a bit more of a step change of a challenge though.

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - TMA01 Submitted

That is TMA01, my first OU assignment, submitted. After re-writing it as an essay, I left it for a couple of days then re-read it, made some minor changes and since then re-read it a couple more times and now any changes I am making are so minor as to be meaningless - so best to submit it and move on to TMA02.

I had some difficulty getting down to a 750 wordcount and used most of the 10% either-way rule almost to it's maximum. If it had been an absolute maximum of 750 I would just have dropped the last (weakest) argument/example, but if the rules say 750, but upto 825, then if you need nearly 825 then why not use the extra.


The deadline for this TMA is 1st March, so if I do have a panic and want to change things I can resubmit another version - but I doubt that will be necessary.

So onwards to TMA02.......

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - TMA01 - Draft 1

So when is an essay not an essay..... when it's a report.

I thought I'd pretty much cracked the first assignment, and then I gave it to my fiancee to proof read, and it is just as well I did. While she said that the points I made were clear, related to the study material and referenced, she's very supportive and encouraging that way :-), she did also point out that I had not actually written an essay...... I'd written a report !

And she was absolutely right.

I'm very used to writing reports and hadn't really given enough, if any, thought to what writing an essay actually meant. So this version is now effectively first draft and now I need to concentrate on structure over content, having previously concentrated purely on content and auto-piloted the structure.

... and it all seems so obvious, once it has been pointed out !

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - Tutorial 1

The first tutorial was an interesting and thought provoking introduction to the course. It was also interesting to see what a wide range of people are on the course, and this was just one tutorial group.

There was no time to discuss the first TMA as this was the official start to the course, so many people have yet to read the course material. I have contacted my tutor about a couple of points, but the assignment is basically finished.

Now to get on with the suggested reading for Week 4, it is comforting to know I am about three weeks ahead of the suggested timetable, plenty of time to tweek things before the TMA01 cut-off date, and also crack on with TMA02.

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - Week 3

The suggested time table for Week 3

     Learning Companion 1,  (0.5 hrs)

     Assignment 01 (12 hrs)

To be completed by the 26th Feb

The assignment question is,
"Drawing upon what you have learned about city road, outline some of the ways in which differences are made and remade on a street that you know." (750 words)

plus

Self-Reflection (50 words)

After a bit of a spurt I have to all intents and purposes finished the TMA. I chose 3 differences commented on in the DVD which happen locally, changing use of space, changes due to time & changing shops/residents. All compared/contrasted to the learning material, referenced and even added some maps and photos of the area. The formatting and presentation has taken almost as long to sort out as I took to write the text.

I started the assignment using OpenOffice, but now I have a '@student.open.ac.uk' email account I bought Microsoft Office Professional for about £40, and it has been a read bonus. Far easier to add and change photos, formats etc in MS Word. The main reason I went for MS Office though was because my fiancee wrote her first assignment and just before she submitted it she sent it to me at work as a last proof read, and although Open Office was supposed to be compatible with MS Office, when I opened the document at work the formatting was all over the place - luckily I fixed it on my works MS Word and it was sent from there. So now I have my own copy of MS Office no formatting worries for me.

Study now going well to plan, a good couple of weeks ahead of schedule unless I find out at  next weeks tutorial  that I have somehow misunderstood the question and need more work on TMA 01.

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - Week 2

The suggested time table for Week 2 

     Learning Companion 1, Week 2, p24 to p39 (5 hrs)

     Making Social Lives DVD, 'Material, Connected & Ordered Lives' (4 hrs)

     Online Activities 3 & 4 (2 hrs)

To be completed by the 19th Feb

 Decided to push on and get the rest of the reading and activities done as soon as possible to allow me a week to work on the TMA before the first tutorial. This is necessary as I am on holiday for about 9 days at exactly the wrong time, so will have to have the TMA submitted before going on holiday as nothing will be done while away.

This weeks work is again fairly straight forward and benefited from almost no input from the incredably off-putting 'llyod robson'. So I need to reflect a bit on what I've read, maybe go over the on-line activities again and then draft the assigment.

I have some ideas about the ways in which differences are made and re-made on a street near me, but until I can speak to the tutor I'm not 100% sure I'm on the right track.

DD101 Introducing the Social Sciences - Week 1

The suggested time table for Week 1 

     Learning Companion 1, Week 1, p14 to p24 (4 hrs)

     Making Social Lives DVD, 'The Street' & 'Making Social Lives' (3 hrs)

     Audio CD 'Reading & Note taking' (0.5 hrs)

     Online Activities 1 & 2 (2 hrs)

To be completed by the 12th Feb

So I've got my learning materials, tutor, tutorial dates and the course website has opened, so time to crack on and try and get ahead of the timetable even if the course isn't due to start for a week. It would be good to get everything needed for TMA 01 done before the first tutorial - hopefully this should be possible.

This weeks study was a fairly sedate entry in to the course, the worse thing about it being the (excuse my language) 'twat' guiding us down City Road. 'llyod robson' (who doesn't believe in capital letters - oh how arty) is a poet & artist (so probably living on the state) who lives on City Road. I guess the camera crew surprised him as he appeared to have made no effort on his appearance considering he was going to be immortalised on film, and certainly this would be his biggest audience by far.

'lloyd' takes us on a tour of City Road with a series of fairly contrived conversations with residents. His strange accent does little to help his cause, especially when he goes in to the newsagent's shop, a shop that looks as though it is definitely going out of business judging by the sparse shelves on display, and has a meaningless conversation about "where can you buy rubber bands and stuff" - er.. W H Smith on every major High Street. I guess 'lloyd' needs to get out more.

You can find out more about lloyd robson and see how your taxes financed his years sabbatical in this   interview . Strange, I thought the 'dole' was for those out of work but looking for employment, I'd no idea you could just opt out of work for a year (or longer) and have the state fund your lifestyle. As 'lloyd' says " i decided i would go on the dole for a year to give myself a chance to write what i really wanted to write" - but is it anything anybody wants to read.

Anyway, that's two of the five video clips watched, hopefully he is not in the next three, I wonder if he declared his fee for this video to the tax man...... of course he probably did. 

The on line activities overlapped the audio CD, and the Learning Companion was a straight forward read, so hoping now to get TMA written in draft form prior to the tutorial.