Dented Reality » study

Back To School Special

Beau Lebens — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 06:04:00 +0000

I’m officially back to study as of Monday, and this study period looks like it will be an interesting one. I’m doing 2 units again, both through Curtin, so no more dealing with RMIT‘s poor efforts at online education.

There are a lot of people who I’ve studied with before in my classes, so it kind of feels like I’m getting to know all the other people who are currently studying the BA Internet Studies. I’ve also looked at my assessment timeline, and it’s pretty solid – basically something due roughly every 2 weeks for the entire study period

We’ll see how things go this time around! New computer just in time as well, nearly finished getting it set up and configured, just a few more things to do and then it’s all go.

Study Period 2 Assignments Online

Beau Lebens — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:26:00 +0000

I realised that I hadn’t posted any of my previous assignments, so here they are for your reading pleasure (or not!).

REA11 Assignment 3 – Revision of analytical structure diagrams about Objectivity and Blogging, and a re-write on assignment one

NET12 Assignment 2 – What Do We Think Of The Web We Weave. This essay talks about the key assumptions driving current views of the ‘Net

NET12 Assignment 3 – The Internet can teach us about the relationshop between society and technology – I talk about it here in specific relation to the economic and business aspects of that relationship.

Here We Go, Here We Go, Here We Go…

Beau Lebens — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 06:29:00 +0000

First day of study period 4 today!

This time around, I’m only doing one unit, called EBS11: Strategic E-Business. This should be interesting, if for no other reason than it’s offered through RMIT, rather than Curtin, which delivers most of my other units.

The unit has 3 assignments, worth 30, 40 and 30% of the total, in order. They look like they are going to be a bit of writing

On first glances, I can make the following observations;

Their LMS, “SERF” looks terrible. The UI is a shocker, and it’s not intuitive at all.
The unit looks quite comprehensive, although I suppose that will remain to be seen once I start reading etc
There’s an external text book, but I think I’ll hold off on buying it unless I really need to (this is an elective after all).

I’ll keep things up to date on here on the way through, and hopefully this unit won’t make my festive season too much of a drag!

The End Is Nigh

Beau Lebens — Tue, 23 Sep 2003 12:20:00 +0000

Drawing to a close of the study period, the next 2 are lined up already (NET23 and NET26) and all that’s left of this period is 2 assignments – a mishmash of revised and rewritten arguments for REA11, and a 2000 word essay for NET12.

I will be very glad to see these 2 first units done, and hopefully I’ll be able to see a lot more units fly by like these ones. My only other hope will be that now that I’ve done a couple, I’ll figure out how to balance the rest of my life a bit better with study and work, since my personal life got a bit neglected in the last 3 months due to too much work and study, which makes Beau a dull boy

Quote of the Day

Beau Lebens — Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:53:00 +0000

Quoting myself now… how sad. I wrote this in an email to DV, and I thought it summed up my opinion of some assignments at University nicely;

[Some assignments are just] an exercise in stringing together references into a roughly coherent text which conforms to their required format.

Meeting e-Classmates (.com.org.net.au!)

Beau Lebens — Tue, 03 Jun 2003 16:08:00 +0000

Last night I dropped a message on Alysha‘s blog. I found her details on the listing available through the OLA class listing for both REA11 and NET12, so it looks like we are going to be classmates for this study period

She emailed me back again later in the evening, but I haven’t had a chance to reply yet, I’ll drop her a line after work tonight!

More Dramas With Curtin

Beau Lebens — Mon, 02 Jun 2003 11:49:00 +0000

Well, after the usual 15 transfers and multiple “we don’t deal with thats”, I have finally gained access to the WebCT system which runs all of the online courses at Curtin — only to find out that apparently I’m not enrolled in anything at Curtin as of yet! (read: they haven’t gotten around to adding the 2 units I am enrolled in to my account, so I can’t access them!).

The stupid thing is that in the end, I knew my password, all I needed was someone to tell me what my username was, so that
I could try out a couple passwords and guess the right one. I don’t even want to get started on how I feel about finally
getting online, only to find that I still can’t start — I’ll email the course co-ordinator and see if he knows when we might
actually start…

More Stuff From Curtin

Beau Lebens — Mon, 26 May 2003 02:08:00 +0000

Well, my study must be getting closer, I got a bunch of stuff from Curtin in the mail welcoming me to the unit(s) and a
basic outline of rules and stuff like that. It had a space for my student number… but I didn’t get one. There was a note
saying that it was “to be advised”, so I emailed them and will wait and see. They are probably confused because
I already have a Curtin student number and they don’t know for sure if it’s the same person or whatever.

Registration Accepted!

Beau Lebens — Wed, 07 May 2003 14:31:00 +0000

Well, it’s official, my registration with OLA has been accepted for study period 2, 2003. I will be studying the 2 units mentioned previously from June – August!

Advanced Standing Approved

Beau Lebens — Fri, 02 May 2003 04:51:00 +0000

Just heard from Matt and my advanced standing has been approved – for 10 units at this stage.

I have also arranged my registration for 2 units for SP2, 2003; they are NET12 (Internet Studies) and REA11 (Applied Reasoning!)

I’m looking forward to REA11, I just hope it’s not too abstract or anything strange and annoying (the whole “argue by changing the subject” approach really gets me), but I am reserving judgement until I get into it NET12 should be an interesting introduction to the core of the degree I think, so that will be interesting to see what things are going to be like

It’s In Their Hands Now

Beau Lebens — Sun, 27 Apr 2003 07:49:00 +0000

I called Curtin to confirm that they had received my application and apparently they had, but it was sitting on a pile of paperwork untouched. After convincing them that it was indeed important (and had to get to the degree co-ordinator for advanced standing approval before the next study period began…), I think it should have been passed on to Matt for review/approval. He should receive it early next week hopefully.

Ahhh bureaucracy, how we love you!

Now I just have to wait and hear from Matt, hopefully to get the good news that I can have 12 units of approved advanced standing into the degree!

Who’s The Idiot?

Beau Lebens — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 09:25:00 +0000

Well, me apparently. Purely by chance, I found out that the postage charge for a local letter here has gone up to 50c per letter. I clicked that I mailed in my application for enrollment using a 45c stamp that I still had, apparently from before they changed the rate!!!

I don’t know for sure if this means that my application hasn’t got there yet, so I emailed the guy who is supposed to be looking at my advanced standing (Matt), but he says that he hasn’t received it yet.

Now I have emailed LSN/CEA/OLA@Curtin to find out if it made it to Curtin at all, but who ever knows with that place – I’ve worked there, and I know how easy it is for mail (etc!) to go missing and never be seen again. *Fingers Crossed!*

Praise Be To Matt

Beau Lebens — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:43:00 +0000

Wow – I wasn’t expecting that. Unless it was a typo of some sort, this is what Matt had to say about my enrollment in the BArts(Net Studies);

I am the person who assesses these – basically, I’d be looking at 8 units (out of 24) advanced standing – how does that sound?

and I was thinking – “bugger, that’s less than I was hoping for, so I trudged along to read the next message which said…

Just remembered – since you have units at Curtin already…12 units (which is the maximum I can give)…

and now, funnily enough, I have a very large smile on my face! This is excellent! With only 12 units remaining, I might still be able to finish by the end of 2004!

Thankyou Matthew Allen

Beau Lebens — Tue, 08 Apr 2003 12:12:00 +0000

So far I have been dealing with Matthew Allen, the Coordinator for Internet Studies at Curtin Uni, who has been surprisingly helpful.

One thing that has really blown me away has been his willingness to suggest that I enrol via Open Learning Australia, which appears to be a much better method of study for me (assuming that I can maintain my own discipline), given that I currently work full time.

I have had to look again at what I wanted to do, because my previous enrolment attempt was unsuccessful. This is because all of the school-leavers get first option at the positions being offered, and they appear to have filled them all this year, so my application wasn’t even really considered. This left me with no enrolment, even though that’s what I had planned on doing. Enrolling through OLA allows me to start studying, without having to jump through the normal University hoops of enrolment. At OLA, I just sign up for the degree ($100), and then start studying units at my own pace.

This brings me to the next cool thing with OLA – the study periods. OLA works on 4 study periods, rather than the normal Uni-year of only 2 semesters. This means that if (theoretically,) I could keep up the pace of 2 units per study period (which I don’t think I can), then I would be able to complete the remainder of my 3 year degree (minus advanced standing) in about 2 years! Apart from this, it just means that you are much closer to being able to study at your own pace, since you have more control over your start-times and the time of year that you study — I like it.

I am in the final stages of completing my application for advanced standing, which will go along with my application for entry into the degree at Curtin, via OLA. Once that is done, I can hopefully get an idea of the number of units that I can “skip” when I start study, and know where to start with things. My official target is 9 units