News from the front

I was starting another course in Västervik on Saturday, so I took Monday off. Here's an update on progress on the course so far.

I've had a couple of confirmations from students on my list and two withdrawals. The people who've withdrawn have done so because the timetable doesn't suit (they're both late entrants and so didn't have the chance to check on this in advance). Now we're down to 15 and we could lose one or two more before we get going.

I've just created a Course Launch attendance schedule and sent it out to the group of students. I'm hoping that Bryan will get it in time to show it to his students today. It had to wait until today, since the composition of the group is still fluid.

The plan is to greet two groups of students at the same time, but ask one of them to wait a while, whilst I work with the one of the groups. This is a bit awkward, but I can't be sure how many people are actually going to turn up, so I'm holding off on actually announcing which group each person is in until they actually turn up. That way, I'll have a better chance of creating a viable group. It makes it look like I might know what I'm doing too!

Time zones are going to be interesting too: we've got people who live in four different time zones on the course, so I'm trying to be extra-clear about which time we're talking about.

Here's the text of the e-mail that went out today:

I'm attaching a list of times when I'll be expecting you on Kamimo Island this Thursday (7th February). Dr Carter at the University of Central Missouri, will be asking some of his students to join you, but I won't know exactly who's coming to which group until Thursday.

I've also left out your avatar names, because I don't have them all yet. I'll make a list available as soon as we get going.

If you know of anyone who's expecting a time, but who isn't on the list, let me know, or ask them to get in touch, and I'll include them on the schedule.

A note about time zones: we've got participants in four different time zones, so the times are at least duplicated, if not tripled! However, they're all the same time in real time. GMT means Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time zone the UK is in. CET means Central European Time, which is the time zone Sweden and Norway are in. EET means Eastern European Time, which is the time zone for Estonia. CST means Central Standard Time and it's the time zone for our colleagues in Missouri. Thus 15.15 GMT, 16.15 CET and 17.15 EET are actually the same time.

I'm looking forward to meeting you on Thursday.