Week 1 - Introduction

Today's lecture introduced us to the module, as well as the assignment, the PDP (Personal Development Plan), and to blogging - the latter of which I am already familiar with.

For this week, I am to undertake three so-called E-tivities, which are as follows:

E-tivity 1a: Find a significant 'other', or mentor. I am not entirely sure of the meaning of this task, however I am under the assumption that I will need a mentor to look over any work I have done, and give me advice. While I am a Multimedia Computing student, this module does not seem to have too much to do with Computing in general, but, as its name suggests, it leans more towards the Learning and Skills Development side of things, which many are familiar with.

(I can ask my parents, a Grandparent, or someone at the University. This will be edited later when I have found my mentor.)

(EDIT: I initially planned to have weekly one-to-one mentoring sessions with a member of staff at the University, however due to time related difficulties, these including the fact that said member of staff only works on Fridays, I have 3-4 hour tutorials on Fridays, and all conveniant time slots were taken by other students, this could not go underway.)


E-tivity 1b: Arrange a personal tutorial with my personal tutor. (I am not sure who my personal tutor is at this time, so I will attempt to sort this out later.)

(EDIT: Due to me not knowing who my Personal Tutor actually was until too late, I was unable to find a suitable time to arrange this meeting. With dealines fast approaching, I had to forget about this and move on.)


E-tivity 1c: Post an image of my 'Learning Line', with a reflection. The Learning Line is basically a graph of sorts that shows, for lack of better description, my personal history of learning. This includes the schools and other academic institutions I have been to, any jobs I have had, or any other things from which I have learned important skills such as teamwork. Below is the image of my Learning Line:



I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at a young age, so initially I went to Mead School in Brentwood where I was in a Nursery before moving up to a Language Unit during Years 1 & 2, and half of Year 3. As 1997 began, I was now attending Squirrels Heath School instead (which was around the corner from my house). After three and a half years there, I then went to Emerson Park School for the next five years, working towards my GCSEs. At some point during this time, I joined a Martial Arts club in Hornchurch (I think it was Kung Fu or Tai-Chi), and gave up shortly after receiving an orange belt, which happened to be sometime after we moved house. After moving (and since I didn’t change schools), because of the distance between Billericay and Hornchurch, I occasionally had to work with Dad on his market stall in Romford, where I still occasionally work today. For Work Experience, I chose to work at a Nursery at a community centre in Romford for two weeks. After getting my GCSEs, I went to Havering Sixth Form for two years, and struggled. My A Level grades were so poor that I almost didn’t get into University, where I just recently received my HND award after my first two years. For the first half of my first year, I joined the University’s American Football team, the Anglia Ruskin Phantoms, where I learned some team working skills.