Sunday, May 17, 2009

Crabapple Elm: Online Quaker Meetings and World University & School

I just sent this to a nontheist friends', or an atheist Quakers', e-mail list, of which I'm a part:



Dear Nontheist Friends,

Here's an update about online silent meetings, as well as World University & School, vis-a-vis College Park Quarterly Meeting (which is part of Pacific Yearly Meeting - Quaker) with some focus on nontheist friends.

Please feel free to explore teaching or learning about nontheist friends at World University and School - like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware.

Best,
Scott




Dear Friends,

It was nice to see you at Quarterly Meeting.

(George), I added an Esperanto language learning link (from Stanford University) to World University & School worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Languages after you mentioned this idea. I'm still shaping the "Languages"' page, so I thought it better for me to add this Esperanto link, since I had asked if you might add it. It's not as easy to add links to (the 'edit this page' tab at WUaS) this page, as it is to add to many of the other pages at WUaS.

But please add many great teaching and learning links as you find them to the other pages, or teach, for example, a course on Quaker history to your web camera, post it to a video-hosting site, and link it to this WUaS wiki (editable web pages). Second Life makes interactive idea-exchange possible. WUaS is a teaching and learning opportunity for all of us and I hope WUaS will make access to ideas, teaching, and learning, simple and easy for all.

I'd love to involve Quakers, particularly, and even find ways possibly to employ young (nontheist?) Friends, for example, as it grows. (This may be some distance in the future). World University & School may help a lot of people by making high quality teaching and learning accessible (viz. MIT Open Course Ware and International Baccalaureates, as kinds of standards). And young Friends, for example, may enjoy posting classes they find or teach to World University and School, learn something, or request classes they'd like to learn about.


(Margaret), here's an online Quaker, silent meeting website originating in Britain, where people can request and schedule silent meeting when they're so moved: quakerworship.org/default.asp.

And here's information about an unprogrammed meeting in Second Life, which meets at slurl.com/secondlife/Sea%20Turtle%20Island/197/17/27 on Saturdays at 10 am Second Life Time / Pacific Time (1800 GMT), and Wednesdays at 1100 SLT / PT (1900 GMT) ~ see homefries.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. I've also posted information about this in my "Loving Bliss and Friends" letter here: scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm (in the 6th paragraph). (It takes about 30 minutes to get an avatar in the free 3-D virtual world of Second Life, and you need at least a gigabyte of RAM for Second Life to work well).

Ben Lomond Quaker Center is a very beautiful location and redwood forest, - it's my first time there. I think the teens had a great time, - it was fun to go to the beach with everyone. And I enjoyed meeting CPQM Friends, as well. Very nice to see you.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

scottmacleod.com
scott-macleod.blogspot.com

World University & School
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
A Global, Virtual, Open, Free-to-Students,
(Potentially Credit- & Degree-Granting),
Multilingual University & School,
with Great Universities as Key Players,
using a Wikipedia with MIT OCW model,
for the Developing World and Everyone

Add your lesson, course or class here now
(with your webcam, record what you'd like to teach and
post it to youtube.com, -
or you can start taking Open MIT Classes Today)

Here's the open Facebook group:
facebook.com/group.php?gid=48753608141


*

(This Quaker Quarterly Meeting seemed like a form of troopbonding to me, in John Money's (1988) sense - bonding together in groups, which our ancestors did. I also enjoyed being away from the computer all day).


**

World University and School is a far-reaching opportunity for creative teaching and learning, - like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware - where we may shape learning and teaching the way we want it to be.

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