Paper sent!

The ICEL paper is now winging its way to the conference organisers for reviewing. The names of the authors is removed from the paper and is blind reviewed by judges who decide if the paper is worth of inclusion. I’ve just checked the web site, and we will hear by the 19th April if the paper has been accepted.

Sharon has done a great job on this, taking an idea and less than half a paper sent to her a fortnight ago, and creating a well crafted piece. We ended up with version 11 of the paper, which shows the amount of collaboration there has been between us. It’s right that Sharon should get the ‘lead’ on the paper, even though I’ll be waving the UCE Birmingham flag (hopefully) at Columbia university.

I’ve updated my homepage to reflect the paper’s submission.

Tutorial

Last night was the first of just two tutorials for the OU course T324.  We had been placed in the largest room at Harborne, so hopes somewhere were high for a good attendance.

I have 33 students currently registered on the course.  around ten of them are working overseas or in the armed forces.

In total, I had five students attend.  This is a better ratio than I achieved last year, with twenty students I usually only got two to the tutorials, but stil disappointing.

Could it be that because I provide the handouts online through the tutor conference that students see this as a replacement for attendance? But if I don’t do this, then the people who genuinely can’t attend are disadvantaged.

I’ve had one note this morning from a student saying that they appreciated the time taken, which is nice (and rare, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked a tutor for a tutorial!), so those who turned up did seem to get something out of it.

The next tutorial isn’t until early September.  Looking at the timing I’ve got a chance to go through the final TMA as well as some examination preparation with them.  Those who were there yesterday were keen to drive the content of this tutorial, so hopefully it will be more student focussed.