M359 - Study Techniques

For each of the courses that I have done so far, I have used slightly differeing techniques for studying - and I was reviewing some of these yesterday. One thing I noticed that was common to all the techniques is that I tend to write down far to many things. I was looking at my notes for M206 that I did a couple of years ago and see that I managed to fill two A4 hardbound books with everything you could think of (and more). But I am not sure that it helped - especially at revision time - too much to take in, drowning in data but lacking in concise and clear information. In fact, when I studied MU120 I definitely found it hard to use my notes.

So, what to do? Two choices I guess. I could really cut down on my note taking, or, I could produce some kind of index to all my notes.

I think I favour the former approach for two reasons - one is that it takes so long to make all these notes, and thats time that could be better spent doing practical work and, secondly, having spent so much time making notes, I'm not sure that I want to spend even more time creating indexes. Unless I can find some good note taking software that will doing my indexing for me.

Watch this space....

M359 - Dispatch update

Good news according to my StudentHome page at the OU. It now says that I registered for the course on 23rd January (correct) and that the course materials for blocks 1 and 2 where dispatched yesterday. Hoorah!
Looks like my fear of starting the course without any course materials was unfounded - so just waiting for my friendly postman to deliver the package.

But I took the opportunity to read through the pdf course guide that I was sent yesterday (full of useful info about the course - what each block covers, how long it is expected to take etc) and noticed that Block 5 (out of 5) covers such topics as using Java and JDBC for connecting to databases and executing either SQL directly, or running Stored Procedures. This is great - and just what I have been doing at work this week. It's always comforting to know that a course is not going to be completely alien to me!

M359 - Course books

Well, having signed up for M359 at the last minute I am now in the situation of being on a course for which I do not have any course books!

Luckily, Ian Macey has emailed me the pdf's of the first block so that I can keep up-to-date (don't worry OU People, these pdf's aren't going anywhere, its just until you send me the real things in the post!).

So thanks Ian, at least I can see what we are all in for!!

M359 - Registered at last!

Aha! Good News - Email from the OU Student Registration dept to confirm that I have been successfully re-registered for M359. A relief - I was half convinced that my email would be at the back of a stack of others and not be acted upon until after the closing date for the course. I needn't have worried.

All I have to do is to worry about the course!

OU reply to my question

Received a reply from the Open University to my question about whether they had any information regarding the M358 and whether students had found it beneficial in a commercial environment. The answer from the OU is that it is a hard question to answer! Essentially what they are saying is that they don't know - and that they don't monitor the course from that perspective.
The reason that I posed the question is that I couldn't make up my mind whether studying M359 (the successor to M358) would be useful from a career point of view. As it turns out, the reply from the OU is pretty much what I anticipated, but have decided to register for the course - I think it will be useful - maybe not directly, but certainly indirectly.
And that brings me onto a curious incident that occured this evening......Having decided to register for M359 (and knowing that as a current student the registration is open until 26th January) I went to the online registering pages only to find that you can only register online for the 2008 course!. So I telephoned the Student Registration number only to be told that I had to apply in writing (Fax or Email will do, apparently). An email was sent off immediately and now I just have to hope that the email is seen and acted upon before Friday - the closing date for applications! More stress!

M359 - here we come!

Well, after enjoying the result from my last course, and taking it easy over Christmas and the New Year, have finally decided to do what I said I would and sign up for M359 "Relational Database Theory and Practice" with the Open University. I promised myself that if I managed to get a Distinction in M254 that I would do this course next, so now I am keep my promise.

Registration for the course closes on 26th January. Today is 18th so I phone the OU Registration Desk just to check - they confirm that I have until 26th and that there are some places left. All I need to do now is wait until Monday (because I need some confirmation on another matter before I know for sure that I can proceed witht this) and then enroll.

It turns out that the course has a start date of 3rd February, so I'm not sure that my course books and materials are going to arrive in time - but thats the penalty you pay for a late registration - just means that I'll have some catching up to do - and I'd rather have to catch up at the beginning of a course before it gets too difficult than half way through!

I had an email chat with Ian, who studied M206 in 2005 att he same time that I did, and he is also doing M359 so at least there will be a friendly, and helpful, face. I think that Nick A is also doing it, so that will be two friendly faces!

Lets see how it goes.