hello from Permaculture Visions,
five years ago we were the
first to start teaching permaculture by the net, we were treated as an
oddity
and most permaculture teachers said it wouldn't work.
We have
shown that it is a great teaching medium especially for working parents, now we
have students in 19 countries.
People like to have plain English, substantial
course notes (the handbook is hard reading for most people and poorly indexed,
also it doesn't cover all topics)
another side line is the mailing list,
students like to be able to watch and participate in designs as they
develop
(we are currently working on the Wollongong University campus East
design) They also like to talk about their
own area or climate with other
students in similar situations.
The hardest aspect of learning on the net
is that students who lack motivation drop out, whereas in a group
they may
stick it out. but at the end of the day I realised that if i planned to
"work where it counts"
then those who stick it out in a distance learning
situation and those who will end being gems,
which brings me to say that I am
proud that Brian (one of our graduates) is teaching from N.Z.
the biggest
stumbling block however is preserving copyright. Especially seeing our
course notes
were 4 years in the making and still being developed. (as the
technology becomes more common we have been able to expand the course notes, now
we can send course notes on CD rom)
I have finally overcome the problem of
copyright
by using Adobe software (Adobe provide free readers) so students
get the files immediately by email and
can browse through, and we minimise
the risk of copyright.
by the way, anyone using the rainbow snake
design (it isn't mine, it belongs to the illustrator of
the
Permaculture Design Handbook by Mollison) is in direct breach of
copyright. Please remove it. Strict copyright laws in some countries
such as Australia can still
affect anyone practising overseas and publishing
within Australia.
Permaculture is about ethics, we
have to keep the net Permaculture clean. there is much more to do on the
net and hopefully,
we get a more organised system which is accessible to the
public.
April