Below is a sampling of those comments from young and old MOOC participants: high school graduates and PHDs, architects and engineers, health workers and nutritionists, farmers and trades people, students and activists, policy wonks and politicians, organizers and community developers, educators and movement leaders, and so on.
2022 MOOC Participants
- I believe the power of the whole program comes from the staging of the content, so the logic and understanding grow as the participant progresses. I have indulged myself with every bit of content presented. The picture feels very ‘complete’.
- This kind of multi-dimensional, integrated, historical perspective is not the day-to-day conversation in my practical community development work so I really valued seeing this story told in this clear, compelling, and sophisticated way linking analysis and action.
- Since we are trying to use the course to help build our local climate change efforts, the opportunity to discuss the course materials with other local participants has been particularly important. The discussion groups are enabling us to build relationships among interested local people, link the course materials to our local context, and at least surface ideas for specific actions that may be appropriate in our community.
- I especially appreciated the linking up of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions in the historical perspective offered, the way of analyzing specific issues, and formulating strategies to bring about substantial change.
- I’ve been a commercial grower, and a horticulture tutor for 19 years, and have basically spent a lot of my life in the food security/resilience/permaculture/organics space. However, even with this background, and just with reference to the food transition module, I genuinely felt my understanding was expanded.
- I really appreciate the extraordinary quality of the course: wide-reaching, critical and creative material carefully curated and presented. Given the value I see in the course, I’d love to find the best possible ways of making use of it.
- I think the course is doing a beautiful job of outlining higher-order motivators at the collective level. How to do this at the individual level has some urgency to it, as mounting malaise, grief, and feelings of being overwhelmed seem to be increasingly dampening flames that are burning within.
- Being able to link the ‘far-away stories’ of other countries to the political structures around me and my experiences with them is deeply appreciated.
2019 MOOC Participants - I know this sounds grandiose, but considering, as Greta T has said, “our house IS on fire!”… This course has helped keep alive my last embers of hope (for a “good” fire) that enough Intelligent and compassionate people may still come together to Unite their knowledge, skills, efforts and resources to reach enough of the rest of that 99% of humanity to actually unite sufficiently to collectively make Cooperative Commonwealth a reality within the very little time we have left in which to do so.
- I had the belief that I understood systemic change before, but now I know I understood it only to a certain degree. I was very much shaken by your approach. It is not seen in social innovation as such.
- I believe this course was extremely important and made the possibility of systems change feel achievable. It is easy to become overwhelmed. I am truly in awe of the effort and achievement of the course organizers, and I thank them for creating a remarkable integration of the many layers that make up our existence as humans in community on this earth. Thank you.
- This course exposed me to many different ideas that I had not met before. It has changed the way that I look at and evaluate issues. I have gone even further away from conventional thinking and ideas.
- I shared articles and case examples/websites with colleagues…. I think from at least two of the modules, maybe three. The material was solid! It added new information and helped me make sense of it all. It was clear and compelling. I agree with folks who talked about the huge value it has!!!
- Value: Knowing that there are a few hundred people around the world who are actively interested and are now very much connected and on the same page is very heartening.
- The learning resources provided have removed many hours of sifting through lesser quality materials. The framing will be useful in communicating my work to more folks.
- Practical: Having access to a pool of ideas is essential for all of us to exercise our imaginations, through taking a dip whenever we wish. I will definitely recommend the resource to others, very useful for getting a group of people on the same wavelength to create further works.
- I am considering using the course as a teaching tool in my local area, to get already active people with varying levels of understanding regarding what the group is actually up to to the same level of thinking. I predict this will increase the effectiveness of our creations into the future. I will organize a group next time it is run.
- After the course, my activism took a new dimension. I had things moving with less effort.
- The course was really good. Please keep developing and expanding it. If Synergia were to offer a degree program on the subject, I would not have a second thought embracing the idea.