Keeping up the journal habit. Or not...

Just realised that my initial good intentions to post regularly as I worked through the Module didn't last long!
Just been through a very busy period as completing the second written assignment was followed by finishing the remaining chapters of the book so I could take the last few online exams then preparing for the day school then the third written assignments. This all coincided with the start of the new academic year.

But the point is that the journal very quickly slipped down the priority list.
So, how can I improve this as I move forward?

A productivity / uncluttering post I read this morning suggested, for example, trying to think of washing up as part of the meal. Perhaps I can try thinking of updating the journal as part of each study session and not consider the session complete until the journal has been updated?

It's an important point when I am talking to my students about their Work Based Project where reflection on the experience is a significant part of their assessment. Unless they do better than I have with keeping their journals, they will struggle at the end of the module.

Some unhappy bunnies...

One of the students on the module made a forum post stating that they were "An Unhappy Bunny" and it seems they are not alone... It's interesting to read the posts to see why some people are dissatisfied.
Value for money enters into it and the course organisation is another aspect.
I haven't studied with the OU before so am not really in a position to compare but, according to some of the other students, other courses provide more and better learning materials than they do on this module.
We have been provided with an enormous Cisco Press book (at least 50% larger than any of the CCNA books) and that is the main learning material. Plenty of reading there...
I was rather surprised to find that Cisco no longer provide any CCNP online materials through the NetAcad site apart from end-of-chapter exams. The book is the official learning material. That for me is not a major problem since I bought all of the CCNA books myself as a) I prefer to read on paper rather than the screen and b) they are a good reference source. I have certainly found them useful while working on the current assignment. However several students have bemoaned the lack of any electronic version. The book is rather big to lug about.
The other aspect that they would like to be available in a downloadable electronic version is the course calendar. The course calendar (Study planner) is available on the module website but that obviously requires an internet connection that not everyone has while studying. This is a useful point for me to remember as an HE Programme Leader that having an electronic version of things like Schemes of Learning or Timetables available that students can easily download and print is pretty important. It would be nice to think that students, for example, had a copy of their assessment schedule stuck on the wall at home. Not so easy to do if it is only on Moodle...
Another aspect that seems to be causing problems is Netlabs. This is a facility whereby you can access real routers over the internet. This takes the place of Cisco's Packet Tracer network simulator for this course since Packet Tracer does not support all of the functions required for CCNP. To ensure that, in theory, everyone gets a chance of accessing the equipment there are rules about how long and how often you can book the equipment. As might be expected there is extreme pressure on the resource in the evenings when people return from work. Several people have their own lab set-ups (mainly sourced via eBay) and I am very lucky in having been able to borrow equipment from work to create a similar set-up. For distance learning, unless Cisco decide to increase the functionality of Packet Tracer, it is hard to see much of an alternative. There is actually another network simulator called GNS3 but that leads into murky waters since it requires Cisco IOS images which are copyright. I can certainly understand the frustration of those students struggling to access Netlabs and can see parallels with my own students for the very few modules where they can only access the software at the college (at least without major expense or finding another source...)
The final aspect that I want to comment on here is the course organisation...
Now I do appreciate that this is distance learning so we are never going to have the same sort of access to tutor support as classroom learning. However, as an HE tutor myself and one who has actually taught on a distance learning course and even passed a staff development module as an e-moderator, I have been a little surprised at how hands-off the course team seem to be... They rarely post in the forums unless someone is having a moan. When I was an e-moderator, we were encouraged to post regularly to stimulate conversation, to encourage, to prompt etc. I dare say that there is a fair amount of direct email conversation between students and their tutors but other students don't get the benefit of that...
I was also rather surprised to find that the first assignment requires us to critically evaluate a routing protocol that according to the Study Planner is not due to be covered until the after the assignment is due in. Having spent a fair amount of time recently reviewing and improving HE assignment briefs, this just seems plain wrong! The module leader tried to explain it away by saying that this is a post-graduate course and that there is nothing wrong with reading ahead. I beg to differ. What is the point of having a Study Planner if the Assignments are not aligned with it...
And my final thought is that when the issue of the Assignment was raised, I didn't participate in the conversation partly to avoid antagonising the tutors... Now if I thought that one of my students was holding back on expressing an opinion because they thought I would give them a bad mark, I would be quite shocked and almost think that they were questioning my professionalism. Which makes me wonder a) have my students NOT been telling me things because they think I might give them a bad mark and b) perhaps I should revisit the forum and add my opinion. It won't affect us but might help students in later groups...
Blimey, that post took a lot longer than I expected...

Check the basics!

I have just spent several hours trying to work out why one particular aspect of a network configuration was not working. I was looking everywhere (or nearly everywhere as will become clear) for the problem and could just not see it.
I was even thinking that there was something fundamentally wrong with my carefully crafted addressing scheme. After banging my head against the brick wall for several hours it was starting to hurt!

Finally just when I was about to give up for the day, I spotted a really basic error in setting up the physical links between two of the routers. (If you are interested, I forgot to set the clock speed on one link). As soon as I put this right, everything started to work properly. I was kicking myself since I am always telling students to check the basics when troubleshooting.

Despite being really annoyed with myself for missing this, there are some positives that I can take away from the experience... The first is that I have looked really, really hard at my addressing scheme and it stood up to scrutiny. Another is that I did get there in the end and proved that the rest of the setup was OK.


And, as has already happened several times on this course, it has reminded me how my students must feel when wrestling with an exercise or assignment. As time went by and I couldn't make it work and was getting more and more tired, I was seriously starting to lose confidence in myself.

I was reminded of a situation when a student was trying to get a particular function of a website working and not getting very far. We had exchanged various emails as they tried to resolve the situation and eventually agreed to meet the next day to see if I could spot the problem. When I checked my email the next morning I found one from the student time-stamped around 2:00am with a subject line along the lines of "Yippeee!". They had persevered and eventually made the breakthrough themselves. At the end of the module, they referred to that episode as one of the positives because they had learnt so much from it!

So, rather a frustrating afternoon but ended on a high!

Nice citation app

In an attempt to practice what I preach, I have been trying to use some non-internet sources for another question in the first assignment where we have to compare several routing protocols.

I popped into the library at Glyndwr University to look at some books and was able to use a rather nifty Android app that I had downloaded the previous day. It's called CiteThis and it allows you to scan the barcode on the back of a book. It then searches the internet to find the details of the book and prepares a correctly formatted citation for you. You can organise citations into folders which is great for multiple assignments. You can then email the list of citations to yourself!

We have to use Harvard referencing but the app will also handle Chicago, APA, AMA & MLA (whatever they are...). I am not sure that the formatting is 100% what the OU want but it will be close enough that I will be able to tweak it easily.

For the princely sum of £0.64 I am well pleased!

Getting started on the first assignment

There seems to be quite a lot of assessment on this course. As an HE tutor, I have quite often heard external examiners saying at exam boards that students are over assessed. Well, no-one seems to have said that to the Open University! We have 3 Tutor Marked Assessments plus a Residential School day plus an exam!


Anyway, getting started on this assignment has been quite hard going. I can't mention any specifics but the first task is to create an IP addressing scheme for a scenario. So far, so good but there is considerable scope for different interpretations of the information in the scenario. Given that this is a post-graduate course, I am hoping that this "flexibility" is deliberate and designed to get us thinking and justifying our choices.


Because this is my very first assignment at this level, I don't really have a feel for the required standard and suspect that I might have over-thought some aspects. However, it has been a salutary reminder of what my HE students must feel when they see their first assignments.


Anyway, I finally managed to break the logjam and start getting something down onto the paper. That was the key because, while I still had to go back and change some aspects as new thoughts occurred to me, I have gradually inched forward. This evening, I think that I have completed the addressing scheme and am hoping that the configuration part of the assignment goes a bit more quickly!


At least I am not alone in my uncertainty as discussion on the module forum shows. Discussing the options and interpretations on the forum has been useful as explaining and defending your interpretation helps clarify your understanding. I, for one, quite like the online discussion as it gives me time to think through the arguments before responding. I know that some people don't see online discussions as "real" communication but I beg to differ!

What's the course and why am I doing it?

The course is initially a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Networking with the Open University. This consists of 4 modules studied over two years and basically embeds the Cisco CCNP curriculum. After that I can do a dissertation in order to achieve an MSc in Advanced Networking.

I have just completed the Cisco CCNA Exploration course which I studied in an evening class at Coleg Llandrillo where I work as an IT tutor. I teach networking on a Foundation Degree in IT Support and on OCR course called Procomm so thought that the CCNA course would be a good way to formalise my previously self taught networking knowledge. Well, it certainly did that! It was a lot more detailed than I expected and gave me a lot more confidence in teaching the subject.

As I was nearing the end of the CCNA course, I started wondering "what next?".

 Several years ago, I had started a Masters Degree at Chester University but had not found it very satisfactory and withdrew after a few weeks. Leaving aside the quality of the teaching(...) another big issue was the travel time to get to classes.

I still had the idea of studying for a Masters in a Computing subject. My first degree is in European Business Administration which comes in remarkably useful but isn't a computing degree. I have gathered a few vendor certifications but nothing at HE level.

I did look at distance learning (to avoid the travel issues) but it always seemed very expensive. For some reason, the one provider that I had not considered was the Open University. I can't remember how I stumbled across them this time but it may have been while browsing for CCNP courses (the next stage after CCNA) which I would not have been looking for on the previous occasions.

Anyway, compared to other providers, the OU cost seemed quite reasonable and I decided to go for it. At this stage, I hadn't even considered approaching my employer for support which was a bit daft really... Anyway after having registered for the first module, I mentioned it to my line manager who immediately suggested that I talk to staff development. To cut a long story short (too late...) they were very helpful and able to provide financial support which is really pleasing.

So, I find myself at the start of a 3 year (minimum) journey towards an MSc. It's the first time since I completed my PGCE that I have studied a proper academic course with written assignments and, to be honest, it's a bit of a shock to the system! But more of that in another post...

Open University studies

I have recently started an Open University course and am going to use this blog that I set up some time ago to record CPD as a learning journal.

As an HE lecturer myself, I am always encouraging my students to reflect on their learning so I had better practice what I preach!

Need to sleep now but later I want to cover why I am doing this course, initial impressions of the course, my surprise at how hard it seems, first glimmers of optimism today, how the process of studying will help me identify with my students, how technology has moved on since I studied my PGCE and no doubt other things as well...