Well-Swept Yard

A couple of months ago I signed up for a MOOC ( Massive Open Online Course) offered by the Harvard Divinity School and taught by Laura S. Nasrallah , Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity. I was enthralled, pulled in, captivated. From the syllabus The letters of Paul are the earliest texts in the Christian scriptures, written by a Jew at a time when the word “Christian” hadn’t yet been coined. What is the religious and political context into which they emerged? How were they first interpreted? How and why do they make such an enormous impact in Christian communities and in politics today? Nasrallah's scholarly passion comes through again and again especially in the numerous videos in the class. The introductory video is a good example. I will not describe the full course. You may still visit the archived portions of the course. I want to stress the value of the MOOC as a learning platform and from my point of view a learning platform perfectly suited for

Pannapacker at MLA: Digital Humanities Triumphant? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education : "I wouldn’t worry about community colleges. Although two-year schools sometimes show little interest in theory, they have been ahead of the rest of us in using new technologies, at least in pedagogy." That is a comment by Henry_Adams on Pannapacker's post in the Chronicle. The comment is right on target. I made the same observation when I was directing a tech center for faculty (some years ago--during that fuzzy time between Web 1 and Web 2). The two-year faculty had pedagogical question but mostly they had questions about how to stretch capabilities of common software--from presentation media to web work. As Blackboard made its appearance at the four-year campus, the community college regulars asked for accounts. I gave permission and even assisted in moving content from their WebCT LMS to our Blackboard system. The reasons? I find them embedded in the post a