Online Tutorials

M366 is the first course I have done where there are a number of online tutorials using a system called Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com/).  This does present a problem though in that the tutor taking the online tutorial can have the tendency to post messages about the tutorial only to their tutor group, as is the case I experienced on Tuesday 23.Jun.09.

Although I reside in region 13 I tend to participate in region 1 tutorials as I work in London and it is often easier for me to attend these tutorials rather than my official ones.  One of the region 1 tutors’ has been very helpful in supplying me with dates and times of the online tutorials so that I could participate.  So on Tuesday I logged on at 8pm only to discover that there was no one else around.  I hung on till 8:30 but with no one else coming online I assumed that perhaps the tutorial had been cancelled.  Yesterday I discovered that in fact the tutor (a different tutor to the one previously mentioned) who took the tutorial had actually started it at 7pm and only her students were aware of this.  I have e-mailed this tutor in the hope that she will keep me informed of the start times of future online tutorials she is taking.

M366: TMA02 Result

Yesterday I got the result back for my TMA02, and am very chuffed as I got 90%.  Like TMA01 this TMA had a number of questions that were word limited, plus some of the questions were not to clear on what was required.  Overall I did not screw up any single question but lost the odd mark here or there for missing out a particular point.

Now onto Block 4 and TMA03, which is all about Neural Networks.  The opinion of one tutor is to leave plenty of time for the TMA as it is very time consuming.

M366: TMA02 Submitted

Last night I managed to finally finish TMA02 and submit it 4 hours before the deadline.  Initially this TMA looked as though it was going to be easy, but appearances can be deceptive as it got harder and harder the further I progressed into it.  Still it’s done and dusted, and I am going to chill out for a couple of days before starting block 4.

The one thing the TMA has shown and greatly concerns me is how quickly I am forgetting things that I have studied in the course text.  For example I had to totally re-read the section on Ant Colony Optimization as I could not remember any of the details.  This means that revision is going to be a real slog.  The way I feel about this course at present I will be happy just to get a pass come exam time.