Sandwort: Figuring out World University & School, Free degrees & wiki - Quaker-related, Music School

Scott, I went to the {World University and School} page and couldn't figure it out. Are you one of the founders? Does it have an actual location, or is it all online? What do you teach, bagpipes or also something else? Do you ever get together face to face for classes? Like do they have a Quakerism 101, or an Earlham school of religion class for a week or two on the west coast? Just curious.

Ro

Hi, Ro,

Thanks for your email, and sorry it's taken me a little time to respond, - I wanted to reply in some detail.

World University and School (WUaS) is like Wikipedia, so we all make it, by editing a page, or teaching to our web cameras, or learning from what's on a subject page already. And WUaS is planning on offering free, university courses, for credit and degrees, accrediting on MIT Open Course Ware. I'm WUaS's founder and head clerk/president.

WUaS seeks to be as exclusively online as possible, but may, around 2018, need to be on-the-ground, as well, after the first 2 years of its first medical school's class's coursework. But that's a long way off.

I've taught a course on "Society and Information Technology," on Harvard's virtual island in Second Life, for seven semesters, and for one semester on Penn State's virtual island, vis-a-vis long-time UC Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells' 'theorizing' of the Network Society in the information age. Castells' research is fascinating.

Face-to-face teaching and learning, in groups, is now possible with Google + Hangouts via group video conferencing, for free.

Here's the Quaker, wiki, subject page, as one example - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Quakers_-_Religious_Society_of_Friends - and you'll find here an online class in Quakerism 101.

But in addition to offering free degrees (Bachelors, Ph.D., Law and M.D. beginning in 2014 - and especially for interested Quaker kids), based on MIT OCW, WUaS facilitates free open teaching and learning through this wiki. And if a graduate student (or faculty member) at Earlham wanted to offer a free, online 2 week course, for example, as a way to focus their teaching, or share their current studies/research, they could do so here.

And World University & School is also engaging Quaker Business Meeting practices in its decision-making, significantly. Our next, hour-long Meeting for Business, is on January 14 at 9 am PST, probably in a Google + Hangout using group video chat. It's open. It would be great to welcome a SFFM representative in WUaS's Business Meetings. (I can share with you the two, past, WUaS's meetings' minutes, if you're interested).

I have in mind starting a Harp, wiki, subject page - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects - and linking it to the WUaS Music School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School - using the Subject Template - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE - as some further examples of how WUaS works, - if you'd like to explore free, online, teaching and learning Harp resources (or whatever subjects interest you), and teach there.

I'm starting an online Music Playing / Practicing Space for an hour on Wednesday evenings at 9 pm PST, for simply practicing / playing socially (which will probably become part of the Music School) ... more about this here: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/12/egret-music-playing-practicing-online.html - with a focus both on playing and making music-making fun. :)

WUaS is a huge vision, Friendly-related, and will not only help a lot of people, by making high-quality (MIT OCW, education, open and free, it will also facilitate people to people teaching. There's a lot more to WUaS, but I hope this helps explain a little of it.

Friendly regards,

Scott

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Interesting concept. I don't think I have the time to particpate now, but maybe in the future. Ro

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Appreciate your friendly engagement with WUaS. WUaS is about open teaching & learning ~ in the now, or moment, as wiki ~ so potentially anyone can go there, now, to learn or teach what they want, and in fun ways (in addition to academic MIT OCW et al. for free degrees ) and potentially in all 3,000 - 8,000 languages, and around 200 countries, with remarkable, growing resources ...

To paraphrase a Friendly saying, WUaS is about "What wouldst thou like to teach or learn today?" ...

So, thanks for your interest in figuring it out.

Scott

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The beautiful sun just rose, orb-full, in Chicago, from the flying space ... 'Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus rose and dressed himself.' (from Homer's 'Odyssey') ... http://classics.mit.edu ... will add to WUaS's Humanities - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Humanities - or WUaS's Classics' wiki subject page - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Classics :)