The Permaculture Association is creating an online learning platform to host a wide range of permaculture courses. 

We’re creating a learning ecosystem that connects learners from all over the globe with quality permaculture educators delivering a wide range of subjects.  

How to get involved now

We’re working hard to get the platform fully functional as soon as possible. We have had high levels of interest from many educators, we appreciate your patience.

 

  1. Read the draft course guidance doc

  2. Sign up as an educator member to get all the news on the platform

  3. Join the waiting list by submitting your course application form  

  4. As soon as the platform is ready you’ll be invited and given guidance on how to build and launch your course

 

If you are really keen to start building now, this is our current draft document outlining how to go about building a course. Be aware that this document may change over time.

The platform’s resources will be managed as a commons. This gives power to educators - more autonomy over resources and providing collaborative time and energy. By being an Educator member you are automatically entitled to be a commoner.  

For more information, please contact Jemma.

 

Why so many educators are teaching online now


Although face to face learning will always be important, there are many benefits to incorporating online learning into your teaching portfolio. We have been planning this work since 2018 but the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellation of events and isolation means that our need to integrate online learning has accelerated.

Teaching online enables educators to reach more people, develop passive income streams and as our world changes these passive revenue streams will be ever more important.

We have created an easy to use platform using the CourseCraft learning management system. This enables you to have full control over the development of your course, with support from us if you need it.

Our system has a high end range of features available on a learning platform, and is available to you at a fraction of what it would cost to set a course up from scratch. 

Designing for Resilience: Foundations of PermacultureThese features include: 

  • Compatible with Zoom for virtual-only teaching 

  • Unlimited uploads 

  • Use any mix of media for your course - video/ text/ images/ quizes

  • Submit feature to enable students to send work to you via the course 

  • Adapt and embed code easily into CourseCraft to enable a range of different features 

  • Sell e-books and other digital products alongside your course 

  • Bundle and sell your courses together or bundle and sell with other educators on the platform

Our first course, Design For Resilience: Foundations of Permaculture will launch in October 2020. You can teach it via our blended option, get in touch! 

 

Our courses -  Earth Care, People Care, Fair Shares 

Join the new global educator membershipTo better support our educators to deliver quality education, we aim to follow the below with all of our courses, delivering quality assurance on our platform:

  • We are a permaculture charity - in using our platform you will be assured of fair prices, strongly held ethics and key principles. 

  • Utilising a wealth of teaching experience and years of practical designs - from our Certifying Teachers Register, globally respected curriculum and diploma network 

  • A Fair Shares pot, reinvesting a percentage of profits into making the course platform stronger. Exactly how this budget is spent will be decided by our community of Educators

  • Short / modular courses, making them more accessible and engaging

  • Different formats, either to be:

    • used by small, closed groups

    • open to many learners

  • Virtual - you can offer Zoom only courses (or other video conferencing).Or Zoom plus online videos, assignments, quizzes and everything else CourseCraft offers. 

A blended learning experience could include:


  • An online course with a mix of learning content 

  • Peers - Comments and discussion 

  • An online forum or support group 

  • Webinars 

  • Live video training 

  • Live ‘office hours’ or drop in sessions 

  • Online assessments 

  • Work submission via email 

  • Video tours of a site 

  • Ebook or playbook library 

  • And face to face teaching of groups or one to one sessions


How you can use the platform

  • Zoom only 

  • MOOC - Massive Open Online Course 

  • Blended course utilising both 
     

For more on our plan, read this PDF download - Our Plan.