Happy New Year, and welcome to the new semester at Edinburgh, and the programme. And for those of you whose calendar has not been unduly influenced by Julius Caesar, or Pope Gregory XIII, just tell us when the New Year happens, and we can celebrate over again. But we hope that you are currently happy and healthy too. 🙂
A particular welcome to nearly 30 colleagues who are joining the programme for the first time, and starting on An introduction to digital environments for learning (IDEL).
I say “nearly 30”. I do have a list of names of people we are expecting to join up, but the list has been a little fluid over the last couple of weeks, for various reasons, and the disruption caused by the weather in the UK in December kept people away from their desks, and this has slowed some of the administration. You are all nevertheless very welcome. Take time to find your feet, but please do begin to communicate with us all via The Holyrood Hub. You will get used to all of this during the early weeks on IDEL.
I mention the weather as it has been genuinely disruptive to the working of the administrative systems at Edinburgh. Probably everyone on IDEL has been formally enrolled, and will find that they can access the WebCT site for the course via the MyEd portal as of Monday 10th January. Those of you continuing on the Programme should find that you can access your courses on Monday too, but if not please don’t worry – all should be well by Tuesday or Wednesday. We will try to keep you posted via The Hub. But please don’t hesitate to contact us – probably me in the first instance (H.A.Macleod@ed.ac.uk) – if you have any concerns. This is, of course, just why we delay the start of this second semester by one week relative to the rest of the University. We need to ensure that everyone has access to the core systems before the course work starts in earnest on Monday 17th.
As I write, we have had another fall of snow overnight where I am, and it is lying on the ground and the trees. It looks quite wet (I haven’t been out in it yet) so may begin to clear when the sun gets up – we shall see.
Best wishes to all. I hope you have a fruitful semester.
Hamish
You ask about other New Year celebrations. The beginning of the year in Iranian calendar is NOROOZ (Nowruz) which is the first day of spring and usually occurs on March 21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz
Hi Shiva, nice to meet you. I’m in Jamaica, in the Caribbean.
Hamish. we are warm here. Seeing the snowy places on television! Not envious at all…
Hello Hamish, thanks for the warm welcome [or should I say ‘the “cold” or “freezing” welcome’ 🙂 ]. Like Charmaine mentioned, it is quite sunny on our side of the world.
My initial plan when I was contemplating to pursue my studies at this University was to travel to Edinburgh. However, now learning about all the snow and freezing weather I am not sure if a Caribbean guy would’ve endured the glacial weather. 🙂
Hello Shiva and Charmaine. I live in the B.V.I.