The school I work at is in its second week of the year, things are held together with Sellotape and bailing wire and just about functional, so of course I spent most of my morning dodging in and out of the new module sites for TM129 and MST124.
The nearly-default Moodle theme I familiarised myself with last year has been reskinned with a flat theme. It’s easy on the eyes and extremely usable on mobile platforms, so thumbs up from me. (Actually, the high level of usability makes the rest of the OU site a bit embarrassing, really.) Great UX planning.
MST-124 is about what I expected: A solid university course translated to an online medium. TM-129 is also about what I expected: Chaos and insanity doled out as if to children. Well, no, that’s what I expected. It seems to be more like watered down squash. It’s what you asked for, just less of it in the same sized glass.
MST-124 (Essential mathematics 1) isn’t bad. It’s an obviously mature module which has honed its methods over decades. There’s just the right amount of hand-holding (to me) for things like preparing assignment formatting, progressing from unit to unit, checking knowledge, and asking for help. The ragged screams and buckets of tears from students in years past have obviously not gone unnoticed, and the result is a very logical, almost soothing trip through intermediate maths.
TM-129 (Technologies in practice) is like someone had a dream about being taught the perfect module, but got it a bit wrong when they woke up and tried to write out all the details before the dream slipped away from memory. I’m sure somebody thinks it’s highly logical, but it’s really a bit weird.
There are three blocks in TM-129: robotics, networking, and Linux. The only other organisation to the tutelage is by breaking it into weeks. So there aren’t units, sections, or sessions, as such. Just Robotics week 1, Robotics week 2, etc. It’s my first day with it, but it seems difficult to learn the concepts in a flowing way. Concepts appear to be explored and limited based on time, rather than a balanced or comprehensive understanding of it.
Thankfully, I’m not here to get an understanding of the topics. As with TU100, I’m here to gain practice in learning. I can’t see the networking information, as that’s entirely in a Microsoft book that has yet to be shipped (I hope Microsoft Press isn’t as bad as their edX team), but I don’t see any glaring omissions from the other two topics. They’re only meant to be introductions, so it’s possible they’re as useless as OpenLearn MOOCs, or they could be dead useful. I probably won’t be able to offer much of an objective view even after the module’s over, due to my familiarity with all three topics already.
Mostly I’m excited that I can study again. I enjoy the process.