End of month tasks

Dear Yellow class,

Whilst you are waiting for your tutorial and/or after your tutorial, please make sure you do the following:

1. Look up your undergraduate course via Metranet or Weblearn, and note down the modules you will be following in your first semester. Check the reading lists and try to find one of the books that looks interesting for you in the library - borrow this to read during the Christmas holidays.
2. Please give us some feedback on this month of the Pre-sessional course (following the procedure on the sheet I gave you) - we are always interested to hear your comments.
3. Write a paragraph on your blog reflecting on this month of the course. Say what was easy/difficult/interesting for you (e.g. seminars, lectures, essay writing) and what you plan to keep working on improving in the final month of the course in January.
4. Identify what your weaker areas this month were (e.g. grammar, essay writing, academic vocabulary) and try to find a language book on the first floor of the library or a website which will help you work on this over the holidays.

Well done for your hard work this month. Enjoy the holidays and see you back on Monday 5th January - 9.45 on the first floor of the learning centre!

Susannah

Self-study Friday

Today, please do the following in self-study:



- check that your blog/self-study tasks are done (at least 7 needed) and ready for submission at 2pm.

- speak to me (or other students) to discuss your essay draft

- if time, start looking at the final seminar (p59-60) preparation

- look at the following link http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3472 to find out more about privacy in preparation for the next seminar

Seminar summary

I've organised the summaries you gave of your seminar discussions into the notes below:

Widespread monitoring in all countries, although some variety between countries.

Negative side:
Some people feel their privacy is compromised. More laws will need to be passed in the future to protect our privacy.
People feel scared of online surveillance. Innocent people feel they are being watched all the time.

Positive side:
CCTV and monitoring is good for catching suspects, it improves security and keeps society under control. It also provides evidence for crimes.
CCTV is needed in modern society, especially now that people move freely between countries and do not know their neighbours.

Solutions? The future?:
We need to find a balance between keeping security by surveillance and protecting our personal privacy.
Papers in the future will be redundant – instead our data will be stored on computers. Technology will be the key to the future.

The progamme I mentioned from last night about crime and disorder in Philadelphia is at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fy4cz/Louis_Theroux_Law_and_Disorder_in_Philadelphia/

Lecture notes

Dear Yellow class,

I wanted to post my lecture notes from today, but am having technical problems trying to do that. I will bring them to class on Monday instead, to compare with yours before we start the seminar at 12.

Surveillance society links

Here are the links from the booklet. Try to do some research using some of these in class today and further research before the seminar on Monday.

On-line sources of information

CCTV: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6900807.stm
DNA Databases: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4166559.stm
CCTV: http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-61925&als[theme]=Video%20Surveillance&headline=CCTV%20Frequently%20Asked%20Questions
DNA Databases: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4579366.stm
Biometrics: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6070576.stm
CCTV: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A622487
Biometrics: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3582461.stm
Privacy: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=JNu1OtkWrOY (lecture)

Orange class

If you're struggling with the homework today, here are the words you need to complete the gaps. You will, of course, have to decide which goes in which gap.

so
like
latter
also

addition

according
such
fact
others
them
that
another
least
which

Yellow class: Example essay outline

Some years ago, most children spent their time playing freely, but today they spend, on average, 30 hours per week sitting in front of a TV screen. On one hand, TV offers them many educational opportunities which children in the past did not benefit from. On the other hand, however, it means that children today have far less chance for physical activity and social interaction, which could lead to health and communication problems. This essay will examine both the drawbacks and benefits of high TV consumption among children, and argue that it can offer many advantages, but on the condition that it is not children's only leisure activity.

Paragraph 1: Positive aspects, e.g. educational opportunities, new learning, gets children’s interest (maybe more than books)

Paragraph 2: First negative aspect: too little physical activity. Children are overweight, even obese. Children have health problems. Result: costs the government more in health care.

Paragraph 3: Second negative aspect: lack of social interaction. Children will have communication problems later in life.

Paragraph 4: Third negative aspect: Children may copy bad behaviour from TV, e.g. crime, swearing, violence?

Conclusion: TV has many negatives, but also some positives.
We need some solutions, e.g. parents need to control how much and what children watch, and work with media companies for this.