Daily Post - Saturday

Off to Leeds today for an induction day for the courses that I am doing at the Open University - namely T175:Networked Living and M150:Data, Computing and Information. I apologise in advance if this blog starts to become a little more focused on what I am doing for my studies and I will try to explain any acronyms that I start using, such as TMA (for Tutor Marked Assessment, fact fans).

Anyhoo, it was a bright, sunny day and the walk from the station to Leeds Met University was very pleasant indeed with the gold trimmings on the statues looking very fine.



One slightly strange experience was walking across one of the squares and hearing some strange, atonal ambient music playing. There was a large video screen and as I approached it I saw myself on the screen with a computerised arrow tracking me and it became clear that the tones playing were affected by where I walked. Very cool indeed. I took a video of it that you can see here.

The morning session was very interesting and covered lots of useful information about the practicalities of OU study, but two and half hours in a rather cramped lecture hall seat was a bit of an ordeal for my aching bones. Still, I survived and it turned out that I was sat next to another chap doing M150 as well, so hurrah for that.

After a very tasty pizza and chip lunch from the canteen, I headed back upstairs for an induction session for T175 which was most excellent. It confirmed that this course is going to be particularly interesting for me in examining the ways in which networked information systems affect our lives and we had some discussion about blogging and social networks. Also, the tutors are going to be using Twitter and Facebook so hurrah for that as well.

Home again now, and rather tired, but I am just about to switch on the illuminations to perk me up for the evening!