By Kerry Rosenthal, Program Director
Published in the Vermont Standard October 15, 2015
It’s exciting – Norman Williams Public Library here in Woodstock is about to offer its first facilitated MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) to the public starting October 21st. MOOC refers to a massive open online course, which a free, web-based university class is designed for geographically dispersed students. The subject of our first MOOC will be The History of the Book in the 17th and 18th Centuries taught by Harvard University’s Robert Daunton. The facilitator for this course will be Wayne Hinson.
There are many ways our library can facilitate the learning provided by these courses. Individuals can take classes at home and come to the library for a discussion of each class, or we can provide a venue for the courses to be taken together with subsequent time for discussion after each lecture. A MOOC provides traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets and many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions between students, professors, and teaching assistants. Some courses are self-paced and some are scheduled at a certain time each week. Some popular websites where you can explore the myriad offerings are www.edx.org, www.coursera.org, or www.class-central.com .
If you have an interest in any subject and a desire to learn at a college level with others (either in the comfort of your home and/or at our wonderful local library) there’s almost certainly a MOOC for you! If you’d have an interest in facilitating a MOOC course at NWPL, please contact Kerry Rosenthal at the library kerry@normanwilliams.org or at 457-2295 ext. 122.
Other highlights of the upcoming events at NWPL include:
Friday, October 16th – Woodstock Digital Media Festival. Happening throughout the day in venues all over town, go to www.woodstockdidgital.com for up to date information.
Saturday, October 17th –
10:30 AM Classics Book Group discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender is the Night”.
2:30 PM “Introduction to The Vermeer Suites” with Poet Daniel Lusk , who will show selected pictures from his new collection of original poems and paintings by 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, talk about the artist and the paintings (“The Little Street,” “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” “The Milkmaid” and others), and read poems they inspired.
Tuesday October 20th –
4:30 PM – Hartford Dismas House: Reconciling Former Prisoners and Society. Come hear about the exciting and important work of Dismas House and find ways to become involved.
Wednesday October 21st – The History of the Book in the 17th and 18th Centuries – a MOOC facilitated by Wayne Hinson (see above)
Friday the 23rd –
10:15 The Learning Lab: Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park” facilitated by Sarah Roberts and Bill Boardman who have made this class open to the public and you may attend even if you haven’t signed up. Join us on the library mezzanine for this 2nd of a 7-week class.
4:00 PM “Being Mortal”, a Frontline film based on the book by Atul Gawande and co-sponsored by The Amazing Grays, NUCS and NWPL. Discussion will follow. This is the first in the series of films on aging with grace.
There are too many events to list them all here, so please do visit our website www.normanwilliams.org to find out about all the things we’re doing here at the library. We’d love to see you here!