Saturday, May 10, 2008

Of Steampunk and tutors

"It makes you wonder what has been lost with all the technology that clutters our lives now."

This was something I said here yesterday. Today, while reading through journals on the feedreader, I found a link to this article about Steampunk.

(Image from www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/gallery/steampunk/)

I've never been one to fit in, but I think I'd like to fit in here. Though if I had the chance, and I could have my Robocop legs installed(!), then I'd be a little more cyber-Steampunk. I think I'd feel quite comfortable there.

On tutors... Yep, well. It appears that my tutor group have been assigned a new tutor after the other one resigned. I know that there had been a lot of complaints about her, and she had really upset Kirst with totally unfair and misplaced comments. Not only that, but it took her over a week to inform Kirst that she hadn't received an assignment. When Kirst provided her with all the details of when it was sent, the day it was posted to her, the reference number on the special delivery envelope, the tutor completely ignored it instead of contacting the post office to rearrange delivery. So now, with only four TMAs to complete before the end of course assessment, I have to try and work out what the new tutor wants to get a good mark. Ho hum!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ally,think I have been very lucky with my tutor.He is really good(Peter Hitchin)He gives really good feedback and his critique is constructive and really does help.Certainly never innapropiate and no snotty comments.Mailed him yesterday about the referencing thing and got a reply within two hours!have copied his reply below.

Michael,
Firstly, as you are now dealing with TMA 05 the line referencing is not necessary. This is only when you are working on the evaluation of a single document for a particular essay such as TMA 03. If you refer to a document now just define it as a whole piece.

In the pdf I sent you their is a section on quoting OU materials. In this instance it depends if you are just paraphrasing information or ideas.
For instance facts such as WWII ended in 1945 are commonplace information and do not need referencing at all. However, if the author is offering their own explanation of why the war ended in 1945, then this is their intellectual property and should be referenced accordingly. You should first use the page number followed by the original textual details, followed by the book that that text is in as described in the AGSG  or the booklet I sent.
We can flesh this out at pre-meeting coffee in the refectory, but it is probably useful to tell everyone about line referencing in the group. Remind me.

Ally said...

Ooohhh, thankie lotsly for posting that. Peter Hitchen is my new tutor! But hmmm, that doesn't bode well for my style of referencing - I use the superscripted numbers. I'll leave it for the next TMA and see what he says. I'll change it for 06 if I need to.

Ally said...

Oh, and does that mean I can use the eTMA system? If so, what word processor do you use? It's just that when I sent the first TMA to the first tutor she said the file was garbled. Dunno if that was me (thought I'm sure I sent it on a Word2000 doc), or her. It would save postage costs :D

Anonymous said...

Great news I think Ally,he really is a decent bloke and is very helpfull.Feel you will be much happier and he uses the eTMA system so you get an extra few days.

Anonymous said...

Oops,missed your last comment.I use word 03-07 and that's works fine.When you save a file my version asks in what format you want to save in i save in 03-07.You can do a test etma with Peter.I have the bought copy of Microsoft office (£100 Grrrrr) Not sure if you can install it on other computers but if you have a problem and it could be used on your 'puter, let me know and i will post you my copy.(as long as you then dont sell it on e-bay!!! Ha )

Ally said...

Awww, thanks for that! But no need to do that. I will email him, and see if he's able to access it with the Star Office software. You get lots of choices of formats with that too. I might ask him if I'm okay to continue referencing like I do. Is the line referencing included in the word count, do you know?

Anyway. Yay! Feeling a little more positive about the tutor change now.