OU EA300 TMA01 Results

I was pleasantly surprised, when checking my email after a long day away from home on Saturday, to find that the results for my first TMA were up. I'm used to waiting two weeks (or more sometimes) for results to come back, so a little over a week from submission to results was a very nice thing to come home to. It was of course made even more pleasant by the fact that I got a pretty good mark for a first assignment.

I've got some useful feedback from this assignment but I can't help but feel a bit like I'm just going to get this course finished as best as I can because it's the last one I need before I graduate with my B.A. It's not that I don't find the course interesting, I do, I'm just struggling with it a bit because of the way it's presented.

There is a Study Guide which you follow through and do the activities when you're told to; activities include watching DVDs, using the DVD ROM, reading the set texts and answering questions about what's in them as well as reading chapters in these two 'Readers' which are like collections of journal articles or chapters taken from other books. Honestly, some of the formatting and editing of the first Reader (I've not gone onto the second one yet) is awful. There's glaring typos and book titles not written correctly and it bugs the hell out of me.

Added to that is the fact that the OU has changed the format for online tutorials and the software used is different now. And it won't work for me. I've tried changing numerous settings on my laptop and also on Mr Click's and no matter what settings I change or how many instructions I follow. I know there's a helpline I can call but unfortunately that's just not convenient for the amount of time I get to spend online each week.

For my next assignment I need to try to reference the Study Guide a little less, and also I've been doing my references incorrectly, even though I thought I was doing them the way the Assignment Guide had been telling me to.

The next one is due at the end of November and then it'll be just four more, plus the EMA. As long as I get a decent pass for each one I'll be satisfied.