I think this week has gone faster then last week and I think because I’ve felt a bit more low than I normally would. I went home for the weekend which was a really nice way to de-stress after a long week of lectures and adjusting to living, sleeping and studying in the same place.

I finally got to meet someone else doing my course who I met on the Southampton Discord server a few months ago. The lecture was good – we discussed teaching styles within the UK as well as discussed a documentary called “Are Our Kids Tough Enough?” which was an experiment at a local school where year nine students were split, half were taught the English teaching style, while the other half were taught the Chinese teaching style. I won’t spoil it, but it was great to see the different teaching styles, how they affected certain pupils (I cried at one point, oops) and how teaching styles are forever evolving. After the lecture, Gigi (who I’d met on the server) and another student, Rosa, went for hot chocolates to warm up as it was super cold!

I ended up going back to my accommodation as I had to deal with some bits. I also completed the seminar task for my next session which also covered Introduction to Teaching. Sadly, my Microsoft Teams started acting up and I missed the lecture but managed to catch-up later on in the week.

Tuesday was definitely more productive. I completed a task for our Researching Learning module which involved completing a digital ‘treasure hunt’ which let us research into digital reputation and using the library services at the university. The university is currently limited to hourly slots and, as I’m so far away, I haven’t seen the library yet, so it was good to get a feel for it online. I also did my first blog post over on the DSEL blog which is used within our Digital Society module, I tried to keep it short and shared information on the Education Foundation and its fab projects, the EdTech50 and the new Support Network set up by EdTech UK. I figured it would be a good way of getting the Education students involved in the world of edtech Twitter early on. I think I might do a blog post about the EduFuturists podcast next. I have also asked to be a reviewer of the blog so hopefully I can be part of the first set of reviewers.

Wednesday was slow. I only had one lesson so tried to focus on making my room a bit nicer to be in, e.g. my new photos from Free Prints came so I was able to put them up on my pinboard. Did laundry and spent a lot of money on it (why does Circuit have to be so expensive?!) and then just worked on reading through the Introduction to Education Studies book. I also reached out to enabling about doing a SpLD screening test which was honestly quite difficult to get through as I didn’t realise a lot of the stuff I do/ how I handle things would appear on the test. I had quite a lot of support in the reading and maths department back in primary school but I managed to lose it along the way, so if I can get the support back (even if it’s just extra time for reading) that would be great.

Unfortunately, I didn’t blog Thursday and Friday. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I’m struggling with focusing and being able to come back to it each day to blog is becoming increasingly difficult. I decided on Friday that it was time to spend some time at home so while this blog post is late, I am happy to share that I am spending the week at home and I am hoping it’ll help me to adjust and take a break from the stress of every day life as a lonely student in Southampton.

See you in a few days.