I think I must have been very lucky to have found the TMA 1 Hints and Tips just as I got to the point of having to cut down my word count by half. Despite the worrying tutorial, I got a better grade than I usually do. But I seem to be in the minority!
Judging by the uproar on the T320 forums, many people got a much worse grade than they normally would and, as some pointed out, at this stage (a level 3 course) that could have a direct effect on people’s final degree grades.
Luckily, as it’s a new course in its first year of presentation the course team seem to be taking on board that they will need to make some kind of adjustments, and it sounds as if grades for TMA 1 will be adjusted as the question was ambiguous and the word limit was very short (1500).
Hooray! I’ve found out how to embed Google and YouTube videos in my WordPress blog (very web 2.0 I know) by using a WordPress plugin called Easytube, so here are some of the videos referenced in the course material:
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Well, my wish did partly come true: it turned out there was a problem with the OU’s ‘Tutorial Finder’ and I did have a tutorial after all. My tutor emailed us and posted the details in the course forum.
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table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df td {margin:0 !important;padding:0 !important;border:0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df tr.lfmHead a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/header/playlist/regular_red.png) no-repeat 0 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df tr.lfmEmbed object {float:left;}table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df tr.lfmFoot td.lfmConfig a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat 0px 0 !important;;}table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df tr.lfmFoot td.lfmView a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -85px 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetplaylist_8e020b1197918c611ee9fda0d8ad90df tr.lfmFoot td.lfmPopup a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -159px 0 !important;}
I’ve carried on experimenting with Last.fm and now that I’ve listened to more of the music and added some songs to my playlist I thought I’d try out some of the widgets: it’s Web Services in action folks!
So I’ve figured out how to get the playlist widget and ‘Top Albums Musical Quilt’ for embedding in WordPress (here they are – not sure if the red goes with the blog theme or not!). I haven’t listened to enough to get my personal charts yet, and I was disappointed that you have to pay a subscription to get your own personal radio station, but maybe I’ll do that to cheer myself up if I don’t get the couple of days of extra work I’ve been interviewing for.
table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 td {margin:0 !important;padding:0 !important;border:0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 tr.lfmHead a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/header/quilt/album_horizontal_red.png) no-repeat 0 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 tr.lfmEmbed object {float:left;}table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmConfig a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat 0px 0 !important;;}table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmView a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -85px 0 !important;}table.lfmWidgetquilt_0459f669785b786d76592f0268fccf14 tr.lfmFoot td.lfmPopup a:hover {background:url(http://cdn.last.fm/widgets/images/en/footer/red.png) no-repeat -159px 0 !important;}
Hooray! After working on this intensively in all my scraps of free time for the last week, I have done the TMA with 3 hours to spare!! Hooray!!!
I paid a visit to the course forum, to check for any new advice on the TMA and to find out the time of the tutorial.
Several people had posted the answers to the ‘Personal history of the Internet’ exercise. Some had used Prestel and similar early bulletin boards. As often happens with the OU, it’s reassuring when so many of them are about the same age as me!
This was an interesting exercise in the course materials: once you start looking back and putting dates to your recollections, you realise things really were quite different, and not that long ago.
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(plus much more on the T320 website!)
What with the first TMA being based on Last.fm, and Last.fm featuring in the DVD, I thought I should at least visit the site and see what it’s about.
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At the time, it seemed like a good idea to wait and sign up in the next tax year. It meant I only had a couple of weeks between signing up and starting the course, but then I’m always optimistic that maybe next year I’ll earn more… (among other things!)
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