The tumblogs have all been submitted – thanks everyone. It’s time now to focus on the final assignment. Most of you have been in touch with either myself or Jen to discuss your topic (and medium) – if you haven’t done that yet, please try to do so in the next week. Remember that you also need to submit your own assessment criterion (or two) to supplement the core ones – these are likely to relate to the form of your final essay, and you might find it useful also to run these past your personal tutor.

Assignments need to be submitted by midnight, Sunday 28 April.

Many thanks to everyone for the energy, commitment and rigour you’ve brought to the course over the last 12 weeks. It’s been a pleasure to work with you all, and Jen and I are genuinely excited to see what you make of the final essay. Best of luck with it, and keep in touch!

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So great to have everyone at the tutorial this evening. The transcript is attached, if you want to review the discussion (or revisit the devilish references…)

Image by Philippe Caza from 50 Watts http://50watts.com/Caza-in-the-70s

Welcome to block 3 – time has gone quickly and this is our final course section.

The micro-ethnographies are looking really good, there has been some extremely impressive work achieved here, in a very short time frame. To do them justice, we suggest spending a few more days commenting on ones you may not have had a chance to see or discuss yet, alongside getting to grips with this week’s activities.

Overall, Block 3 is concerned with the over-arching theme of posthumanism, and we start with some readings aimed at orientation to this complex set of ideas. Hayles and Haraway are the classics, but you might do best to start with Pickering (listed in the secondary reading) for an accessible introduction, if you’re unfamiliar with this area of thought. Either way, you’ll probably want to spend a lot of weeks 9 and 10 just reading and thinking as you work your way through some of these readings. You’ll find some discussion questions to help you – blog your thoughts if that seems appropriate and post a tweet when you have a post to share with the group.

We’ll also pick up on these questions, and others, in the Skype chat next week – remember this is Monday 18 March, 7:30pm (UK time). It’s not compulsory to be there, but it’ll be a good opportunity to further discuss ideas and to clarify any areas of concern. Also a good opportunity to meet up and socialise a bit as the course starts to draw towards its close!

Or not! Image from www.cafepress.ca/+sociology+gifts: yes, sociology gifts….

Welcome to week 7! The ideas coming through for the ethnographies look really great so far, so please do continue the talk in the hub  forum to continue to build ideas and get feedback as we enter the ‘building’ period. If you’re looking for inspiration, you can always take a look at the work previous groups have done during this week – from 2009, 2010 and 2011 – there are some terrific examples there too.

A few people have been raising ethics-related issues in the forum: it’s important to take these seriously, so please do check out our ethics guidance page, and if you’ve any doubts or concerns drop your tutor an email, or raise it in the forum. And one more quick reminder – there’s guidance on some of the media you might use to make your ethnography here. However, given the quality of what you produced for the MOOC responses, I suspect many of you won’t have any problem with this aspect! However, don’t hesitate to give your tutor a shout if you need more guidance.

Post a comment to the ‘Building your ethnography’ page to let us know where your ethnography is, once you’ve done it, and please tweet it too, to #ededc. As the ethnographies appear, try to spend some time viewing and commenting on each other’s – toward the end of this week and into the beginning of next if need be. We are really looking forward to seeing what you produce this week!