Sonja's Open University Blog

New OUSA Northern Europe website now up and running!

urmeline — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:03:51 +0000

As many of my blog readers are students in continental europe, you might be interested to hear that OUSA in Northern Europe has set up a new website which is now up and running and can be found here: http://ousane.wordpress.com/ . Enjoy!

getting closer

urmeline — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:36:36 +0000

This Saturday is the official start date of DD303 Cognitive Psychology and a week after ED209 Child development starts officially. So…it’s getting closer…that period of fully overlapping two modules. Before, I have always ever overlapped partially, i.e. one course started in October and the second in February. But this time I must admit I have quite a bit of respect of having them running completely alongside each other. Better not think of exam time just yet .

During the last week I was supplied with my tutor details for both courses, both tutors are women this time and both have already been in touch with the group. However, there was no information about how big the groups are. DD303 will have a tutor group forum, but I doubt that will be used much. In the past I haven’t come across a single tutor forum which was used. But maybe this time it is different. No idea yet though whether ED209 will have separate tutor group forums.

Last Thursday the course website for DD303 opened and since I haven’t really looked into any of its related material anymore. Why?…well…I am scared *lol … I was impressed to see the course calender and how much is going to be expected of us each week. For instance there’s a 26 pages research paper which needs to be read as an offprint for week 1. Plus another one of “only” 5 pages . I don’t know, but this put me off for a while and I redirected my attention to ED209. Working my way through chapter 1 there, which so far gives quite a nice overview of what the course is going to cover. In comparison to DD303 it seems (SO FAR!) like a walk in the park! But time will tell. ED209 website is due to open tomorrow…curious what surprises that’ll bring to me.

First look into DD303

urmeline — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:26:42 +0000

So, life is giving me a lesson again of how quickly time can fly. It is truly amazing that it took me 2 weeks to come back to my blog and write about what’s happening with my studies. Feels as if I only wrote tha last entry yesterday, but it’s long ago.

What has happened?

During the last 2 weeks I grabbed the chance to get started on DD303. As I had been lucky to receive my materials end of last year I could now fully dive into them. So far I have read, the introductory chapter and all chapters which belong to “part 1″ of the course. Part 1 is about “perceptual processes” and consist of chapter 2 “attention”, chapter 3 “attention” and chapter 4 “recognition”. Of these three, “attention” was definitely the worst and I came out of its intensive studying only to ask myself “so, what is attention then really? is it at all possible to express attention in words?”. my gut feeling suggests that maybe “attention” is one of these abstract concepts in psychology where researchers try to pin something down which simply isn’t to be summed up in a single idea? I really don’t know. I can only hope that our first TMA won’t (!) be about research on “attention”, that would be a challenge I am very happy to miss out on!

Anyway, “perception” and “recognition” came as a much better read and I learned lots from it. Some of it was repetition from DSE212 “Exploring PSychology’s” cognitive chapter, but in that way it felt a bit like “home”. Greatest challenge in those two chapters is a theory by soemone called Marr, which tries to analyse how exactly we end up with a 3D representation of things that we perceive. It’s a tricky story, but I think possible to get the hang of eventually.

Bottom line after reading Part 1 chapters: DD303 is definitely going to be a challenge. It’s by no means an easy course but interesting and full of knowledge to be gained.

OUSA Northern Europe goes facebook!

urmeline — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:02:10 +0000

Good news for all facebook fans: OUSA in Northern Europe has now got its own facebook group set up which can be found here ! Be one of the first members and help us get the group running!

I see you there!

2011 in review – blog statistics

urmeline — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:29:42 +0000

Thanks to busy elves at the wordpress offices ( ) I received once again a nice overview of this blogs statistics!

The report starts off in saying that:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

In 2011, there were 82 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 171 posts. There were 21 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 42mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was August 31st with 171 views.

A big THANK YOU to all my readers, followers and fellow students! It’s been another great year blogging about my studies at the OU. 2012 will be my last year of studies for the Bachelor of Science Psychology and all that is left to say is “same procedure as every year?”…of course!!!

Happy New Year!

DD303 materials arrived

urmeline — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:54:39 +0000

It’s has only taken 12 days this time for my new course materials to arrive. This is surprising, especially bearing in mind that Christmas was also in the thick of it. I didn’t actually expect to receive the materials this year. But here they are:

The box contained a massive, more than 600 pages main module book which comes in small print and very few pictures or graphs and figures. On top of that there is a methods book and some additional guides for the project work at residential school and some software. Looking at these materials now I am unsure whether to start crying or laughing hysterically *lol lol lol …oh my goodness,…lord please help me! I wonder what I have let myself into!? Just the look of DD303 says “I am LOTS of work” and I find it hard to imagine (as always before a course gets going) that in a few months I’ll have read it all and understood most of it and learned so much! So, I’ll better get started with the books sooner than later. Once ED209 materials arrive at my doorstep, I’ll be more than busy till October!…Wish me luck .

Language switchover

urmeline — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:41:48 +0000

As some of you will have already noticed, I am switching this blog’s language to English. Older entries will remain in German, but the general information pages will be gradually translated into English. This will take some time, so bear with me, please .

Time for pleasant anticipation

urmeline — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:20:04 +0000

Today my student home module record for DD303 “Cognitive Psychology” changed and a section on material despatch appeared. It informs me that by Friday the course materials are going to be posted off. I wonder when I’ll get them this time. I don’t really expect them to arrive this year, but we shall see. Waiting for new course materials is always a bit like children’s anticipation when waiting for Santa . Once the materials are here though, the real work starts again!

Must see?…maybe!

urmeline — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:05:03 +0000

Triggered by my autism course I recently watched the film “After Thomas”. It’s a true story about a couple that’s going through life with an autistic child. It’s highly emotional and in opinion very well done. I felt it gave me a good idea of what it means to have an autistic child, how life changing that experience is and how different the child’s world is in comparison to our “normal” world. Amazing film, which I can advise to watch to anyone that’s interested in autism.

Elected!

urmeline — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:04:26 +0000

Today the election results for OUSA Northern Europe have been published and OUSA in Northern Eruope has now oficially transfered into being an Assembly! I had stood for election for the executive and am happy to have been elected. The last year as communications officer was great! I have enjoyed the work in the team and writing newsletters etc. I hope that things will proceed along similar positive lines with the new team and look forward to another year of OUSA Northern Europe work .