On being a student
So, I survived my exam on ancient Greek (as usual, after the event, asking myself what all the fuss was about) & signed up to be a post-graduate in 2006! I've been there before - got the doctorate, if not the Tshirt - but that was largely in response to pressure from peers & superiors at a time in my life when I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm not entirely sure that I've grown up even now, but I do know I've found my niche, as an online tutor, & the new course will give me a piece of paper to prove that I'm not only doing it, I also know what it is that I'm doing!
This was a dream, really. I'd often looked at the OU's postgrad courses with longing, but knew I couldn't afford the fees - or more precisely, couldn't justify diverting the family finances in that direction. I'm working for the OU to earn, not to spend, & I don't "need" any more qualifications, right? So I stuck to keeping my brain active on courses the OU would pay for, my staff "perk". (No chance of nicking paperclips when you're working from home!)
This approach had already paid off once, big time, when my experience as a student on T171 (You, your computer & the net, my first ever "freebie") led to an invitation to tutor it & thence to involvement in a pilot scheme for online support of the Arts Faculty's main level 1 course. So I became a convert to online tutoring & got a career, of sorts, out of it, not to mention the arty friends who've featured in other posts :-)
This is the logical next step. Within hours of the OU announcing that staff fee waivers would no longer be capped, I'd scoured the online prospectus for possibilities, compared notes with a colleague, & was just waiting for my exam to be over before deciding whether it felt right or not. It feels right!!
The course is H806, "Learning in the connected economy" - the qualification, a Postgraduate Certificate in Online and Distance Learning.
I'm very excited :-))
This was a dream, really. I'd often looked at the OU's postgrad courses with longing, but knew I couldn't afford the fees - or more precisely, couldn't justify diverting the family finances in that direction. I'm working for the OU to earn, not to spend, & I don't "need" any more qualifications, right? So I stuck to keeping my brain active on courses the OU would pay for, my staff "perk". (No chance of nicking paperclips when you're working from home!)
This approach had already paid off once, big time, when my experience as a student on T171 (You, your computer & the net, my first ever "freebie") led to an invitation to tutor it & thence to involvement in a pilot scheme for online support of the Arts Faculty's main level 1 course. So I became a convert to online tutoring & got a career, of sorts, out of it, not to mention the arty friends who've featured in other posts :-)
This is the logical next step. Within hours of the OU announcing that staff fee waivers would no longer be capped, I'd scoured the online prospectus for possibilities, compared notes with a colleague, & was just waiting for my exam to be over before deciding whether it felt right or not. It feels right!!
The course is H806, "Learning in the connected economy" - the qualification, a Postgraduate Certificate in Online and Distance Learning.
I'm very excited :-))
posted by bluefluff @ 2:09 AM
4 Comments:
At 19 October, 2005 11:50,
Buggles Balham High Road said…
I can feel your excitement. The same as Nogbad?
The OU needs more and more online tutors like you and others.
My last two OU courses in Social Science have had no official tutor led online OU Conferences. The only contact I had with my tutor in both courses was my marked, returned TMAs. The F-2-F tutorials were 160 mile round trips. The only email contact I had (not in FC)was my mails to them telling them I'd submitted and I also politely emailed them thanking them for their tutor comments and summaries.
I have always been very grateful to the handful of tutors who read the OUSA course conferences in their own unpaid for time and pop in with advice if the student discussions are giving misinformation.
I am thrilled for you and the course discription is mouth watering. And expensive!
Congratulations ;-)))))))
At 19 October, 2005 15:51,
kat said…
It looks a great course and I hope you enjoy it. It is a lot of money and it is good that you can get it for free. I must be a bad person because although none of my individual courses cost that much money I do spend that approximately that amount each year on various courses and I give them a higher priority than the mortgage. That said I am pretty good at recovering course fees. I either get it back from employers, get them to provide the course or pay for it in the first place, or sometimes I take on extra work to cover the cost. I am only really doing the job I am doing so that I can get free or cheap courses. I would like to be able to say that I do it for other people's benefit but primarily I do it for my own.
Sounds like your exam went okay. :-)
At 19 October, 2005 21:24,
bluefluff said…
Morning - yes, that's the one:-) We're wondering how many other familiar faces there'll be.
Kat - don't put yourself down!For both of us it comes down to doing what feels right, doesn't it?
At 19 October, 2005 23:02,
kat said…
I'm not putting myself down - It just happens to be the truth. A college tutor once said to me 'Kath, if you want to learn anything - Teach it! The next thing I know I was signed up on the cert.ed and given some paid work. I love my job ( jobs, contracts etc.) and I like working with people but when I took it on, I did it for myself and for my own reasons - Not that there is anything wrong with that - except that initially I was a bit brutal with the family income. I left a well paid job to study and teach part-time. I had got to the stage of hating the well paid job and wasn't prepared to sacrifice my life.
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