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Welcome back ... It's been a while since the last newsletter, and from now on it will come when there's something to say and time to say it. Partly because time is in shorter supply and partly because the Christian eLearning scene is developing only slowly. But in any gaps between newsletters, you can always email me. I had the good fortune over the summer to visit Fuller Theological Seminary in the US and to meet the Director of their Office of Distance Learning, Ron Hannaford. If ever I doubt the message of the potential of eLearning in Christian education and formation, Ron’s enthusiasm and the success already achieved gives great encouragement to keep going. His exposition majored on the MA in Global Leadership (MAGL), offered as a mostly on-line course. The first 4-unit module, Developing Your Learning Plan, helps each learner clearly to articulate what they want out of the course, to publish on-line their plan to be critiqued by other learners, and to revise, refine and justify it in light of comments from peers and tutors. Learners then fly into Pasadena from all over the world for a two-week, 8-unit face-to-face intensive Global Leadership Seminar. “The atmosphere when they meet is electric,” says Ron, “having had extensive interaction with each other via the virtual learning environment, walking in each others’ moccasins as they have sought to understand each others’ contexts and challenges to growth.” Back home, each pursues four more on-line modules within the core MAGL programme, 9 further modules from the wide Fuller provision and there is a second two-week Seminar in Pasadena towards the end of the course. Overall, an achievable blend of face-to-face learning (initially incorporated to meet accreditation requirements) and on-line, using each for what it does best. Members of the first cohort are fulsome in their praise for a programme that allows people to work with others across the globe, to learn rapidly and all while remaining fully engaged with their ministry context. For more, visit www.fuller.edu/magl. Fuller use the ‘expensive’ eCollege learning platform (www.ecollege.com), but plan to develop their own software before long. Thrilling vision, determined implementation, already exciting outcomes. Meanwhile, Connected Community Learning continues to plough its furrow, with the well-received Being Beside Someone Bereaved starting soon, as well as Mission: Tradition Confronts the Future. The latter has challenged all participants, forcing us to look again at gospel and culture through the lenses of mission to an African tribe and mission in the Acts of the Apostles. It has also worked well for educators who wanted to taste collaborative on-line learning for themselves. As one ordained leader wrote afterwards, “This has been my first experience of e-learning and I have been very impressed at the possibilities it offers. I have really appreciated the thought and effort… put in to summarise the content of the book; to tie it in so effectively with the development of Acts as a parallel Bible Study; and to use such a variety of learning and response tools as a participant.” Join it?
Yours in Christ, |
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