Foreign Perspectives

Now that I’ve seen the light so to speak (the glaring headlights of the oncoming ED209 exam that is) I thought I might try to be a little bit more organised about notes for future courses, hence this little page.

I’ve collected together all my 2009 ED209 Child Development notes here for your perusal. However, for a slightly more complete series there’s also this which includes a couple of posts on exam preparation. Whilst my notes were prepared with the October 2009 exam in sight, Tim’s notes encompass the entire course aside from the fourth book. ED209 is an interesting course but you’ll find that the first month is very hard indeed if you haven’t done DSE212 beforehand.

Sadly there’s no Tim-equivalent for the 2009 SK277 Human Biology course so I had to run up my own notes on it which you’ll find here. These are targeted at the June 2010 exam so they only cover the chapters highlighted by the course team for the essays. For the short question revision I pulled out all the learning outcomes and section summaries into one fantastic 27 page document but sadly I can’t upload it as it’s entirely OU copyright. A really fascinating course that’s doable even if you haven’t any biology behind you (though the first book is heavy going if that’s the case).

2009 SK121 Understanding Cardiovascular Diseases is a surprisingly medical course starting off with two seriously heavy duty chapters going through heaps of medical terminology; after those it’s a much easier ride. A fascinating course which ties in well with SK277. No notes for this as the TMA and ECA are quite doable directly from the course texts.

2010 S282 Astronomy starts off easy enough with astronomy (ie the stars) before moving on to the rather more mathematical cosmology. The TMAs follow that progression too with the fourth one being pretty much entirely mathematical. That change requires a change in approach to the answers too. I’ve already prepared my 20 page course summary (OU copyright, so not appearing here) and hope to run up an exam revision guide here in due course.

2010 S151 Maths for science is a very practically oriented introduction to the maths you need for most sciences. It starts off at quite a basic level and takes you up to degree level maths in very doable steps. You’d need more maths than this for physics but it looks fine for all the other sciences. The ECA is a multiple choice online one which you can spend as much time over as you like; it’s best to try the sample ECA first as entering some of the answers needs more thought than working out the answers themselves.

2010 S196 Planets is a bit dry and has a dated feel to it thanks to it being based around the Teach Yourself Planets book. The ECA seems quite easy and very doable directly from the course guide and teach yourself book.

2010 SK185 Medicines, molecules and microbes is a fascinating introduction to chemistry.

2010 S171 Empire of the microbes is one I’ll not be starting ’til November.

Next up the sequence I’m currently looking at is 2010 [S192 Fossils and the history of life], [S173 Plants and People], [TT280 Web applications: design, development and management] 2011 S204 Biology, [TT281 Client side of application development], [TT282 Server-side of application development], SXR375 Plants, pigments and light, [SXR205], [TT380 Databases within website design], S205 The molecular world, [TT381 Open source development tools ] 2012 S320 Infectious disease, (new edition), [TT382 Web server management, performance and tuning] SXR376 Molecular basis for human disease, [SXR344],  S344 Drug design and synthesis 2013 S377 Molecular and cell biology, [S345 Chemical change and environmental applications], SXR103 Practising science, S104 Exploring science, [S347 Metals and life] 2014 S366 Evolution or SD329 Signals and perception, [SXM390 Science project course: frontiers in chemistry] and finally back to psychology with the replacement for DSE212 Exploring psychology. Those of an observant nature will have noted that to do all of the above in the indicated time would be a sure-fire route to the loony bin! This is largely because the above includes both a life sciences and molecular sciences degree plus a certificate in web development, all in the time normally alloted for a single degree in the OU and consequently it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll do all of it. Also, as the plan moves from 2011 to 2014 it gets rather hazier.

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