23rd December

I've reached a impasse with my assignment, inspiration is need for the next direction and it affected my work in this day. The morning was fine but there wasn't really any activity from then on. Feeling a bit lethargic.

22nd December

Nothing much doing here. A bit in the morning but then it was off to do Xmas shopping with Helen and then out with all the family to my parents health club. Both were necessary and enjoyable however by the time all this was over the day was gone. The evenings aren't going to happen for me here.

21st December

It's a constant battle to keep up with this blog. I'm not sure why that is. It might be that I don't associate MA work with blogging as I associate blogging with my informal learning on the blogosphere. Anyway, 21st Dec was a good day. I established a good work environment at my parents and did about 4-5 hours. Most of the morning was spent working and some of the afternoon although the evening was a right off. I'm finding staying away the TV quite easy during the day. This is mostly because there isn't really anything I want to watch. However, it's still easy to watch it when bored.

20th December

I travelled to my parents for Xmas where I will stay until 28th. So I have week to try and break the back of the assignment. Felt better finally so I decided to kick start thing by doing some weights in the morning and going for my first run for 9 days at the gym in London before travelling down to Liss where my parents live. Train delays and redirections meant I arrived about 5pm and after dinner and Helen arriving the day was gone. However, I decided to start some reading late at night and then again when I awoke in the middle of the night. Hopefully this will help tomorrow when I need to start properly.

14-19 December

Once again I seem to be incapable of keeping up a blog of this kind. It seems that if I can't find time to work I also can't find time to blog about the process. I hope to change this as in some of the reading about reflection I'm doing for my assignment it seems that some think reflection is a skill that can be learnt so hopefully as I get better at and keeping practicing the art of reflection I can make this blog a more valuable space than it currently is.

Anyway, the story of these few days is that I was ILL. Yes, properly ill with a horrible cough. Actually, it was a cold from which the cough came but it's the cough that dominated. I have a real problem with coughing fits whenever I get a cold and this is something that I haven't had properly diagnosed. I only made it in to work on Tuesday and Thursday so technically I had lots of time to work but it seems I lack the discipline to sort myself out when I'm home alone. Part of the problem was I was feeling ill but also I was unable to exercise which caused lethargy. Anyway, nothing much was done expect a ton of printing at work and the borrowing of a couple of books. Hopefully, this is enough to see me through the writing of the assignment.

Sunday, 13th December

A good day again. The race didn't happen as I was still feeling ill and didn't want to aggrevate my cold. I still have a nagging cough.

Work done was 4:15 hours. Pretty good, could be better but it's a productive weekend. I got through all of the article I had printed off at the weekend and then set about thinking about the structure of my assignment. By the end of the day, I have a rough idea of the section and have started seeking out relevant further articles. I found a few and will print them off tomorrow. There's a big test to see how much I can get through during the week. A looming problem is that access to articles is far easier at work due to the university internet address. This will inevitably be an issue as I can't possibly read everything by the end of the week. However, there is the ATHENS access which should help. On the upside more and more is available through the web these days.

TV watching was 3:10 although I'm watching sports personality of the year online now which will take it to 4:30. Despite this it's mission accomplished regarding limiting the tele as I've got through all that I hoped. Things are taking shape and if I keep this up I will be fine.

Saturday, 12th December

I've made a great start! I'm so pleased with how today went. It could have been better but everything is relative and today was a big achievement. I had 7 articles printed off. The idea is to read and then start writing reflections on them in the actual assignments. This was going to be achieved within a framework of only 3 hours of TV. I earmarked 2 football matches for this viewing.

I got up at 7ish and then had to return to bed because it was so cold. It wasn't good that I felt like I had a cold (this is because I do). After a cup of tea and turning the heating on, I finally rose at 8 and started work. The morning saw me cover 2:30 hours of work and finally start writing actual words. Lunch disrupted things as did my massive headache and I stumbled through the early afternoon and the first football viewing. In the evening, I cooked and watched the second football match and did another bit of work. Overall, by 8:40 I had completed 5:30 hours of work and had watched 3:10 hours of TV. Ok, I missed my target but the result is a good one. I've written 954 words and got through 5 of the articles. I'm not sure what the next step is after reviewing these studies but I'm hoping something will naturally follow.

Tomorrow I have a 10k running event to do. I'm not sure whether I will do it as my cold isn't much better. I will need to weigh up the pros and cons. MA learning would benefit if I didn't go.

3rd-11th Decemeber

This was a bad time. Nothing much was achieved and time ticked on. The main reason is the two heavy nights of drinking which wiped out potential MA learning in subsequent days. The worst of these was Friday, 4th where too much drunking laid me low on the sofa for Saturday and I just couldn't get going on Sunday. TV dominated. A busy week at work and socially have seen the days fly by.

The only real progress is the reading of couple of articles one of which is forming the basis of starting the assignment. So this is an important step. Also, important was the realisation that limited TV watching is going to be vital if I'm going to write this and other assignment. In terms of lifestyle, TV is a fundamental part of my life and deep down I'd like to cut down. I have resolved to only watch 3 hours per day on non-work days and 1 hour on work days. This is going to be soooooo tough. For a weekend day when I'm not going out I don't think I've ever watch that little. The main thrust of this is going to apply to the Xmas holidays. I have one week left of work and then two full weeks of holiday on which I'll spend the most at my parents. Can I stick to this?

Wednesday, 2nd December

A good day where I managed to googledoc all of the ALT-J articles I read over the weekend. I now have 14 articles read and noted. I reckon I need to get this up to 30 before I am feel satisfied I've done enough. Also, I had a look at the example assignments I've been given. I've decided to read all the A grade one with topics that are in some way similiar to mine. 13 were identified and I printed off 2. I've read the first. I will try and do 1 a day.

The third strand of my information gathering are my read blog posts. I haven't tapped this knowledge yet but over the last few months I have been carefully tagging good posts that I have read. I aim to go through all the ones I've marked pedagogy, learnign styles, instructional design and probably some others and take the best bits putting them in google docs. This could be quite on undertaking as some are pretty long. Also, there will be some crossover with articles here as some of the posts point to research articles/documents.

I've also chosen a title and will try and only read things which will be relevant to this.

Tuesday, 1st December

Not a lot done here. I was at work and was catching up what I missed yesterday. I did read one article which was a set reading and googledoced it. Hope to do more tomorrow as things calm down.

Monday, 30th November

I was off sick so I decided to take advantage of the space to catch up on my Learning Technology blog reading. Technically, I wouldn't class this as pure MA Learning but it's certainly learning and there is definitely some crossover. Anyway, at the start of the day I had about 380 unread. At the end of the day it was 31. This is exactly what I wanted. Some posts take half an hour to read and some take 3 seconds. I take each one on it's merits. The good process was because with no sport to watch I didn't have the TV on so I played Beethoven and just studied. Also, I was able to take leisurely lunch and watch a film (Public Enemies).

Pretty pleased with the way things went as it's really easy to spend an off day like this lazily watching daytime TV.