New York - May 2006

A picture taken by Nick Goodacre in May 2006 New York's 6th Avenue.
(picture reproduced with the permission of Nick Goodacre,
copyright N.L.Goodacre)

Module 2 - further thoughts

After some hesitation am now able to crack on with Module 2. Developing a website has been a different experience:

http://firstclass.ultraversity.net/~richard.goodacre

Still very much in its prototype / infancy days - forgive an old dinosaur but we do move slowly.

Interesting to compare websites - some are very professional; many look professional but lack focus; and some (like mine) are quite amateurish. Hopefully by the end of these three years there will be a website to rival every other!

Further thoughts

Some very well made and welcome points from Jen relating to my previous post. Have now participated in a chat on FC - well moderated and organised. Again the dynamics are still somewhat strange but I expect I will overcome this.

Received my results for the first module and am very happy with the score and comments. To be fair the module was very much in my comfort zone - not certain about module 2 but am battling away.

Have learnt to use tools such as 'Paint' and 'Screen Capture' - both will be really useful with reference to work applications.

Not certain at this stage about analysing other researchers' web-sites / blogs - let's see what happens!

On-line tools

Module 2 has asked us to list on-line tools we use (both UV and other).

Plone - obviously need to source a variety of information through this. Message posting is relatively easy but I have only posted 3 in total so far. Can be a bit confusing though as they seem to link to threads rather than chronological therefore can be shifting around the screen a lot. There are no flags to show new postings.

First-class - read it most days and have posted a few messages. However, not certain about the way FC is used. Perhaps it is my suspicion of e-mail. A lot of 'chat' seems to get in the way of the 'proper' information. Did feel at one stage it was becoming an 'us-and-them' format. Despite there being 88 in Cohort 6 it appears only about 30% are posting anything on FC - why is this? The same names appear - no problems with that but must remember FC is e-mail not a chat-room. Understand they are trying to establish some sort of chat connection but at present I would have to wait to be 'invited' to join a chat using FC.

Blogspot - first time ever I have developed a blog - quite interesting (the process, not the blog!!). Can see an application with my wine education work so am determined to develop a separate wine blog.

Module 1

Thank heaven Module 1 is complete. Sneaked a look at some other submissions - very impressive. Somewhat taken aback by their level of computing expertise. Makes mine look very turgid (even though I managed to download a few digital photos).

Not certain how much emphasis will be placed on presentation over content.

Now an anxious wait for the results.