Summary of course taken.

I am in my second year of a Psychology course and I have relied on Blackboard for everything such as lecture notes, access to journals and timetabling, It is so much easier for me than going into the library or onto the campus. Next year will be my final year and I will have personal research project with literature review and final exams. I am fascinated by the issues that arise around teenage pregnancies and our management of ‘sex and relationships education’ as it is now called. I would like to do a post graduate degree at the university and hope to go into teaching.

Description of Strategies used.

I had a laptop with external mouse and keyboard as a result of my DSA assessment. I don’t use the mouse they gave me as I have my own, but I was very grateful for the keyboard. I hate using laptop keyboards they are awful for two reasons: because of the empty space between the keyboard and the edge of the keyboard (where the keypad is), I can’t reach enough over that to get to the keys unless the keyboard is really low down, and I’m towering above it. Also because the keys are too springy. Although they are easier to press than the regular keyboard, I feel like I am actually typing with that. It’s harder, not noticeably, because I find typing very easy, but their too springy on the laptop. It’s personal preference.

My father gave me a card reader for digital camera cards and it is also a USB hub as well. So that is connected up to my computer because I lost the USB connection to my camera. But that was a bit of a pain anyway, as I could not put the USB wire very easily into my camera. It is also a lot easier as you just slot things in and it flashes green when it is working.

I use LiveJournal, but that’s just a personal one. For me, it’s more like a diary. I used to write my diary but a real one is too tiring. Typing is easier for me. Keeping it personal, is the problem, though. There are settings to make it completely private, or you can select people to read it. I have made friends by it as well. It is pretty good, you can completely customise it. You can either mess around with customising it, very basically, or if you are into HTML you can mess around with that. I tried and exhausted myself with that. It can be useful, as you can link people to a specific entry, or the whole journal. You can set up communities where you can invite [posters] to contribute and that can be private so that only a select few or anyone can join in. I’ve never done it for work, because I don’t know anyone that’s a member. I think people are wary of it – a journal – blogging. I suppose people are more aware of blogging now, but I don’t know anyone who does it – I suppose it is still a bit of a niche area. I spend a lot of time on the Internet so I know about these things. Quite a lot of people just don’t look for these things on the Internet. They don’t think, “Oh, I need to write down anything”, so they don’t use it for that. Facebook is probably the closest they come to it.

I did use Firefox a bit, but Opera is much nicer. I prefer the layout so much more and the keyboard and mouse shortcuts are so useful. For instance I use right click followed by left click to go back a web page or just the z key. I find the automatic reloading of a page useful when working on forums which you can customise to however many minutes or seconds you want. Opera also allows you to add your chosen search engines as part of the menu. There is also a function called ‘speed dial’ that provides you with your 4 most important web sites.

E-learning has changed everything. 20 years ago I probably would have found it a lot harder. I would have relied on other people to do photocopying and everything for me – whereas, with essay-writing in terms of the research is so much easier: to have it all there on the computer, to be able to read at your own pace. I don’t like the library environment at all. I find it quite distracting. I think the lecturers are getting better with what they can upload content-wise. I know one lecturer in my first year used to voice-record and do a video of his PowerPoint, so you could watch that and listen at the same time. You could put this on your iPod. It was just files he has recorded himself and uploaded them. It was amazingly helpful.