An educator F/friend of mine has gushed on about Moodle, the open
source education system and I have to admit it’s always looked intriguing. I’ve taught a
number of real-world Quakerism classes
and I’ve wondered whether online courses could help connect Friends and
seekers isolated by distance or theology. I’ve been wanting to try out
one of Beacon Hill’s online classes for awhile.

From the description:

Is online teaching new to you?

Don’t know where to start?

We’ll
begin with the simplest interactive course:
a “welcome to the class” section with a reading and one forum. We’ll
talk about technology: how settings change
the forum interface; but we’ll also discuss teaching technique: how
to present introductory material to students
who may have a wide range of experience and expectations.

Over the 10
weeks, we’ll cover: introducing the moodle environment; chats; forums;
choices and surveys; lessons; assignments; databases; wikis; quizzes.

You will have your own lesson space to explore all these tools and will
be expected to look at each other’s work and react to it. By March we
should all be ready to design and offer creative Moodle courses of our
own.

Classes only cost $25. You can find out more about the Beacon Hill’s Moodle online class and all their Quaker Studies classes. If anyone would be interested in some sort of QuakerQuaker-sponsored classes, let me know. We’ve got a lot of well-qualified Quaker teachers in the network and a lot of isolated Friends wanting to learn more.