Website for Collaboration on Resilience Projects

Submitted by mhagle on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 7:02am

It seems like we need the right tool.

Introducing:

NOW the Path Forward is an educational website based on Moodle (http://moodle.org). It's purpose is to grow solutions under an open source umbrella and use the educational tools such as wikis for collaboration. In this scenario, the teachers are actually teacher/moderators and the students are student/collaborators. Do not think of the courses in a traditional sense, but rather as work space. Participants can contribute at any level they prefer. Lurking is allowed.

Suggested course titles are: Alternative Gardening, Rituals for Daily Living, Hosting a Stone Soup Event, Hosting a Houtenanny Event, Repurposing Used Clothing/Linens, Repurposing Furniture, Repurposing Miscellaneous Stuff, Harvesting Rain Water, Creating a Conversion Kit for Vehicles from Gas to Electric, Solar Water Heaters, Foraging for Food - What Food Grows Wild in Your Area?, Preserving Food - What Works for You?, Shipping Container Living Space, Alternative Affordable Living Space, Using Solar, Wind, and Batteries for Sustainable Energy, Bringing Soil Back to Life, Dyslexic, Introverted, and Color-Blind Students in Education, Growing Artistic Endeavors in Education, Taking Competition out of Wellness in Education, Cooking What You Grow, Cooking From Scratch, Bartering Systems, Families Raising Chickens, Families Raising Dairy Goats, Families Raising Dairy Cows, Families Raising Beef Cattle, Sustainable Hunting as a Primary Meat Source, Creating a Food Forest, Nesting: Making Your Home Welcoming Inexpensively, Families Raising Alternative Livestock and Foul, Families Raising Pork, How to Stop Buying Stuff and Start Making Stuff, Discovering History, Creating Alternative Internet Networks, Reading Club: Classic Books at http://www.gutenberg.org/, Listening Book Club: Classic Audio Books at https://librivox.org/, Restoring Manufactured Housing, Running for Public Office, Creative Recycling, Discovering Poetry, How to Help People, Good Living With Little Money, Encompassing Grieving, How to Stage a Safe and Peaceful Protest, PTSD Veterans - Bringing Them Back to Life, Family Stories as History, The Virtues of Generosity Gratitude Kindness and Compassion, Humility.

The first class called, Alternative Gardening Methods: Round Bales, Raised Beds, Etc.. is set up in a topics format and scheduled to last for ten years. (Do you suppose we will figure everything out by then?) So far, there are three assignments posted. The first is a forum for participants to post their gardening histories. The second is a wiki for the class to collaborate on a math project to answer the question, "how much do you have to grow to feed your family for a year?" The third is comprised of twenty-two wikis to identify the best crops per hardiness zone and soil type.

To join Alternative Gardening, email marilyn@nowthepathforward.us

To start your own class, email admin@nowthepathforward.us

Many thanks to JtC, our administrator, for logging in and giving great advice.

Tags:

collaboration

educational

Gardening

Building

making

Vote

Comments

Submitted by Granma on Fri, 12/01/2017 - 3:01pm

I've bookmarked your site.

I have little space suitable for gardening but the class sounds great. Thank you.

Submitted by JtC on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 9:18am

Thank you Marilyn...

This is a great idea! When I get a little spare time I'll borrow your banner image and give you a prominent spot in the left sidebar linking to your site.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 9:50am

Wow 10 years.

This looks great. Thank you so much for launching this and doing all this work. I would like to take your class but right now am embroiled in time consuming circumstances. I think I can spare a bit of time this month but next month looks better.
Our fall garden was trampled and rooted up by ferrel hogs, they dug up half of our 600 onion sets. Since our big garden is on someone else's property we have not decided if we want to put in a fence or not. Anyway we had a small setback but there are plenty of other projects in the works.
I'm very interested in your class and want to participate. My main interest right now is building soil and making good compost. After watching the video posted by studentofthearth, I want to do more research on permaculture.

Submitted by studentofearth on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 4:51pm

Fence suggestions

@randtntx Pigs need a pretty substantial fence or an electric shock. Have you thought about a solar powered electric charge and a portable electric fence. Could adjust to the size of the garden and move to another location when the time comes to change the garden spot.

I usually buy local at my feed store, but do my research at this site. (permier1supplies.com) Pigs are very smart if goodies inside they will routinely test the fence.

—

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Submitted by Deja on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 5:32pm

Do donkeys work on wild hogs like they do on coyotes?

@studentofearth
I've never heard of it, but was curious. The only wild hog I've seen was apparently road kill, and was literally, the size of my little Honda Civic hatchback - probably totalled the vehicle that hit it. (Correction - I actually came upon another dead one in the road whose carcass was gone the next day - so that makes two.)

They can get so big, I wonder if a donkey would even make them bat an eye?

Submitted by studentofearth on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 7:40pm

Probably not - they tend to chase predetors

@Deja They tend to chase predators that would eat them or their young. Pigs would probably not fall into that category.

They are very good for coyotes and dogs. Mine are miniatures so when the neighbor calls to let me know he has seen new cougar tracks they get penned up like everybody else near the house and lights.

—

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Submitted by mhagle on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 8:22pm

My dad used a low electric fence to keep racoons

@studentofearth

out of the popcorn and sweet corn.

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by randtntx on Sun, 12/03/2017 - 5:47am

@studentofearth Thank you for this idea

@studentofearth Thank you for this idea. I really like the option of using a fence that can be moved to another location when necessary.

Submitted by mhagle on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 8:24pm

Not so much a class, but rather space

@randtntx

There is no timetable. It is a place to come and read and contribute when ever you like.

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by randtntx on Sun, 12/03/2017 - 5:48am

@mhagle That's perfect for me.

@mhagle That's perfect for me. TY

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 10:30am

I am interested in this.

I was thinking along similar lines, in terms of an essay series here on C99. I wish Gerrit were still here. He'd love this.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 11:14am

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I miss Gerrit as well.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I miss Gerrit as well.

Submitted by mhagle on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 7:36pm

I sent him an email about it

@randtntx

Have not heard back though. He would be a great asset.

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 8:29pm

"The Open Source revolution is coming and will conquer the 1%,"

says ex-CIA spy. He wrote a book in 2014 called "The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust."

Congratulations on putting this together, Marilyn. It's a wonderful idea. Glad to hear JtC will give it extra profile. Like so many of your suggested course titles too.

Seems you're a manifestation of what he is talking about. It's an interesting book (was just looking for it on my shelves but seem to have misplaced it, or lent it out):

Drawing on principles set out in his latest book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust, he told the audience that all the major preconditions for revolution – set out in his 1976 graduate thesis – were now present in the United States and Britain.

Steele’s book is a must-read, a powerful yet still pragmatic roadmap to a new civilisational paradigm that simultaneously offers a trenchant, unrelenting critique of the prevailing global order. His interdisciplinary ‘whole systems’ approach dramatically connects up the increasing corruption, inefficiency and unaccountability of the intelligence system and its political and financial masters with escalating inequalities and environmental crises. But he also offers a comprehensive vision of hope that activist networks like Reclaim are implementing today.

“We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale while it abandoned the early indigenous wisdom councils and communal decision-making,” he writes in The Open Source Everything Manifesto. “Power was centralised in the hands of increasingly specialised ‘elites’ and ‘experts’ who not only failed to achieve all they promised but used secrecy and the control of information to deceive the public into allowing them to retain power over community resources that they ultimately looted.”

Today’s capitalism, he argues, is inherently predatory and destructive:

“Over the course of the last centuries, the commons was fenced, and everything from agriculture to water was commoditised without regard to the true cost in non-renewable resources. Human beings, who had spent centuries evolving away from slavery, were re-commoditised by the Industrial Era.”

The goal being, "to reject concentrated illicitly aggregated and largely phantom wealth in favor of community wealth defined by community knowledge, community sharing of information, and community definition of truth derived in transparency and authenticity, the latter being the ultimate arbiter of shared wealth.”

—

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by mhagle on Mon, 12/04/2017 - 3:51pm

Heck Yes!

@Mark from Queens @Mark from Queens

Edited to tone it down.

says ex-CIA spy. He wrote a book in 2014 called "The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust." Congratulations on putting this together, Marilyn. It's a wonderful idea. Glad to hear JtC will give it extra profile. Like so many of your suggested course titles too. Seems you're a manifestation of what he is talking about. It's an interesting book (was just looking for it on my shelves but seem to have misplaced it, or lent it out): Drawing on principles set out in his latest book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust, he told the audience that all the major preconditions for revolution – set out in his 1976 graduate thesis – were now present in the United States and Britain. Steele’s book is a must-read, a powerful yet still pragmatic roadmap to a new civilisational paradigm that simultaneously offers a trenchant, unrelenting critique of the prevailing global order. His interdisciplinary ‘whole systems’ approach dramatically connects up the increasing corruption, inefficiency and unaccountability of the intelligence system and its political and financial masters with escalating inequalities and environmental crises. But he also offers a comprehensive vision of hope that activist networks like Reclaim are implementing today. “We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale while it abandoned the early indigenous wisdom councils and communal decision-making,” he writes in The Open Source Everything Manifesto. “Power was centralised in the hands of increasingly specialised ‘elites’ and ‘experts’ who not only failed to achieve all they promised but used secrecy and the control of information to deceive the public into allowing them to retain power over community resources that they ultimately looted.” Today’s capitalism, he argues, is inherently predatory and destructive: “Over the course of the last centuries, the commons was fenced, and everything from agriculture to water was commoditised without regard to the true cost in non-renewable resources. Human beings, who had spent centuries evolving away from slavery, were re-commoditised by the Industrial Era.” The goal being, "to reject concentrated illicitly aggregated and largely phantom wealth in favor of community wealth defined by community knowledge, community sharing of information, and community definition of truth derived in transparency and authenticity, the latter being the ultimate arbiter of shared wealth.”

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by mhagle on Sun, 12/03/2017 - 12:35pm

Thank you so much for this Mark

@Mark from Queens

I am going to follow your link and read up on it today.

I was very much involved in open source software development, so that is my inspiration. Not as a programmer, but a user for 15 years as a teacher, communicating with the developers, asking questions, reporting bugs, etc. Particularly the Musix live CD/DVD. These guys were from Argentina and Brazil. While I was working and able to, I sent them $20/month. What I received in return was a bootable live operating system with excellent music and art software. Go into a computer lab, each kid has a CD. Boot em up and bam! A great time for kids. Also have belonged an educational OSS email list called SchoolForge. A great group of online folks supporting each other on the free software front. http://sourceforge.net is the biggest software repository I think.

The One Laptop Per Child software called Sugar is a wonderful collaboration too. On my last job with elementary kids, they literally squealed with delight when we booted into Sugar. All the computers could see each other so the kids could do activities together. Marvelous.

None this ever caught on in schools, though, primarily because of the greedy giant arm of Microsoft.

So this is a cautionary tale even for nowthepathforward.us. I hope to see a bunch of people participating, but still sort of low key. Silently saving civilization.

says ex-CIA spy. He wrote a book in 2014 called "The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust." Congratulations on putting this together, Marilyn. It's a wonderful idea. Glad to hear JtC will give it extra profile. Like so many of your suggested course titles too. Seems you're a manifestation of what he is talking about. It's an interesting book (was just looking for it on my shelves but seem to have misplaced it, or lent it out): Drawing on principles set out in his latest book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust, he told the audience that all the major preconditions for revolution – set out in his 1976 graduate thesis – were now present in the United States and Britain. Steele’s book is a must-read, a powerful yet still pragmatic roadmap to a new civilisational paradigm that simultaneously offers a trenchant, unrelenting critique of the prevailing global order. His interdisciplinary ‘whole systems’ approach dramatically connects up the increasing corruption, inefficiency and unaccountability of the intelligence system and its political and financial masters with escalating inequalities and environmental crises. But he also offers a comprehensive vision of hope that activist networks like Reclaim are implementing today. “We are at the end of a five-thousand-year-plus historical process during which human society grew in scale while it abandoned the early indigenous wisdom councils and communal decision-making,” he writes in The Open Source Everything Manifesto. “Power was centralised in the hands of increasingly specialised ‘elites’ and ‘experts’ who not only failed to achieve all they promised but used secrecy and the control of information to deceive the public into allowing them to retain power over community resources that they ultimately looted.” Today’s capitalism, he argues, is inherently predatory and destructive: “Over the course of the last centuries, the commons was fenced, and everything from agriculture to water was commoditised without regard to the true cost in non-renewable resources. Human beings, who had spent centuries evolving away from slavery, were re-commoditised by the Industrial Era.” The goal being, "to reject concentrated illicitly aggregated and largely phantom wealth in favor of community wealth defined by community knowledge, community sharing of information, and community definition of truth derived in transparency and authenticity, the latter being the ultimate arbiter of shared wealth.”

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by studentofearth on Sat, 12/02/2017 - 10:50pm

Will be joining in a couple of days

This is a great idea you have pushed forward from concept to action. Being able to have specific courses and interactive communications will benefit newcomers over the years than an Open Thread weekly or diary series format. Those of us currently can benefit from all the various communication formats and funnel individuals to both websites.

—

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Submitted by mhagle on Sun, 12/03/2017 - 12:47pm

It is my intention to use c99 essays and OTs

@studentofearth

as resources. Also intend to keep posting on c99, and linking to it from the course.

—

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Submitted by Sima on Tue, 12/05/2017 - 5:26pm

Great Idea!

I just sent an email to sign up for the classes. I'm a lurker here, normally. This is inspiring! Thank you.

—

If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so