Audio Version
Hi All,
As we finish Week 03, I thought it an ideal opportunity to reflect how far we’ve come, it’s hard to believe that we are 1/4 of the way through the semester!
Reflection
Throughout these three weeks, we’ve completed the orientation tasks which help us set up our communication networks, Moodle, Slack, and email as well as find out about the types of tasks that will be completing this semester and most importantly setting up our blogs!
Week 03 began in which will become a routine pattern with the Reading Task where you were asked to read 3 papers and write a synopsis in an academic style, this would be new for most of you and I’m delighted to have read many of these blogs and look forward to providing you feedback on them early next week.
In addition, you’ve carried on with your Twitter Tasks, The Twitter task offers an opportunity to develop your professional network.
You have also completed your first Unity tutorial which I can only imagine for many of you was a difficult and challenging experience. I am aware that some have you have had difficulties both in relation to the video streaming and in using unity. I’ve spoken to Unity about the video streaming and from their end, they have seen no difficulties and are suggesting that it is an issue with high numbers accessing at the same time. They have indicated that they will attempt to add more bandwidth to resolve the issue and I encourage you to attempt unity tutorials as early as possible to help alleviate this issue.
Project
This weekend many of you will work on your Project Task, brainstorming 4 game ideas with the goal that 1 will eventually become your game. I look forward to reading and providing feedback on these early next week Please remember to complete this declaration, you must email me the declaration and a post there is no need to post the blog itself.
Most of you have successfully completed these tasks with little or no support and even those who have needed to reach out went on to complete these tasks successfully. For those who are finding this difficult still please do not hesitate to ask for help in the first instance through Slack in the weekly channel for support from your peers or through email directly to me I’ve been attempting to reply to these queries through the first few weeks as quickly as possible and I hope I’m meeting your needs.
Tasks + Time Management
I ask as you reflect on the previous three weeks to consider how you will approach the rest of the semester and in particular this module, Multimedia Development 1. I have purposely set up this module to include a mixture of task types, you will notice that you are asked to read and write in an academic style, to do things as in the unity tutorials, and write in a conversational format by developing your Project. I’m hoping that there is something for everyone in these tasks.
In relation to grading, I set out at the beginning of the semester that you will determine your grade by the quality and quantity of tasks you complete, I’m aware in these complex times that you might not have time to complete each task, that is fine, we all have to decide how much time we can dedicate to this module and what grade would like at the end of it, to that end there will be tasks that you may not be able to complete The system this module uses is designed to deal with that, I have built-in space for the occasional task to be missed, Moving forward please do not ask for extensions. Be aware that there is an opportunity to take advantage of the grace period, The grace period automatically provides for an extension of 12 hours to avail of this please complete the declaration before the task to date without clicking the final “Submit all and Finish” only click the final “Submit all and Finish” when the task is complete the grace period extends to 11:59 of the next day. BTW: please do reach out if you are unable to complete tasks for more than a week in those circumstances, we will tailor a plan to suit your needs.
I had many emails on the night of submissions, please consider creating a timetable for working on modules that is not dictated by task deadlines but instead that matches your life schedule and in particular I’ll highlight the Unity tutorial as one that you might like to get finished early due to technical difficulties that may impact your work if left to the last minute.
So, to reiterate moving forward onto week 4 there will be no extensions unless you will be unable to complete work for more than a week,so try to complete tasks early and as always reach out for support when needed.
Course Development
One of my Tasks (yes, I have them too!) this week was to update my feedreader which brings all your blog posts to one place so I can easily see your work and provide feedback. As of today, I am aware that a small number of students have completed declarations without completing the tasks or who haven’t provided Blog details, this may be inadvertently misunderstanding how the module works. I will wait until Monday before progressing this matter further if you’re one of these students I suggest contacting me ASAP to see how we might resolve this. I would like to thank all those who engaged with the task so far in an honest and open manner.
An additional task that I’ve been working on this week and hope to make progress over the next few weeks is to update the remaining weeks on both the Website and Moodle, at this stage I’m complete to Week 05 though I need to continue developing the audio instructions for each task, I hope they have been useful.
Though this system has been used for the previous 3 years, I still feel there are opportunities to improve I thank those that have made suggestions to date and I look forward to hearing any ideas on improving any aspect of the module, In many ways, this is your module so help me to make it better for you!
Lastly, I’ve recently become aware that Unity offers certification opportunities, We may have the possibility of taking the unity exam next semester please let me know if this is something you would like me to explore.
Thanks
Thank you again for a great first quarter, your engagement, your spirit of cooperation, and passion for succeeding has been inspiring I hope we can continue to work like this throughout the semester. Keep up the great work going forward.
Shaun
