Hello, good evening, and welcome. Whatever time of day it is I’m
sure that one of those statements fits perfect.
Introduction
So here
I am and it’s the end of the Semester, or should I say Block 1? Ok
it’s the end of the semester and the end of Block 1. It has really
been a busy busy time. Work has been mega busy and I’ve been
working really hard on my Masters. I have made a really good effort
this time and stayed focused on what I wanted to do. Every Sunday
my lecturer posts our new topic online to Pebble Pad, and like a
true nerd, I’m logged in and eagerly reading the tasks before
trawling through my selection of airpower books and starting to jot
down some initial thoughts and feelings.
Pebble Pad
I like to try to make my first posting onto the Pebble Pad Blog
by Tuesday at the latest, so I usually do this on a Monday evening
after I’ve finished work. If you want a tip then stay focused and
make sure you allocate at least an hour each day for reading and
another hour for write-up and posting. One more tip, do your
write-up in a word document and then cut and paste it into the
Pebble Pad editor. Only one downside about Pebble Pad, I can’t use
my Ipad to access it as “IT DOESN’T HAVE FLASH!!!!!” (sorry about
the excessive use of exclamation marks)
Air Power Module
So a little more about this module I’ve been doing…… It’s Called
Air Power and it’s about air power (obviously) so we have been
looking at the definitions of it and the early uses and techniques,
strategies, theories used in air power throughout mainly the
twentieth century. I’ve had mixed pleasure with the weekly blogs as
this time round the rest of the people haven’t been as active as
last year’s group. But luckily for me there is one person on there
who makes a good contribution and we are able to engage with each
other’s posts and comments (so thank you). It really is about
peer-to-peer engagement and I really value this as a learning tool.
It’s really powerful to have this sort of interaction with the
other students on your course as it’s good to see something from a
different perspective and even have some of your ideas and thoughts
challenged. Especially as this is a 100% online module. I really
look forward to meeting the rest of the group on my future
modules.
Putting It All Together
So here’s
a little more about what I actually did…. The weekly blogs make up
25% of the total grade, I think it should be more, but hey. I made
sure that I made regular contributions to this and tried to post at
least three times. I only missed one week and that’s because I was
a way and with my Ipad. The second component was a Source Analysis.
I hate these, but in some ways I also love em. I think it’s because
I prefer to write an essay and look at different sources and bring
it all together. I guess the benefit of doing a source analysis is
that it can be about my personal thoughts so I’m able to adopt a
different writing style. Anyway, that was worth another 25%.
Finally the last component was a 3000 word essay. I once again get
to choose my question and once again I’m spoilt for choice. To cut
a long story short, I finally got it done and submitted. I did well
by writing a pretty comprehensive plan. I even stuck to it and gave
myself plenty of time to start it and get it finished. I even
managed to hit the word count exactly (allowing for my plus 10%)
so, now all I have to do is wait for the final results I’m keeping
my fingers crossed for a B overall. Let’s wait and see.
Thanks for reading and I will add a bit more personal info in
the next instalment.
Bye for now