This Internet-based forum is an experimental endeavor and its purpose is to support learning about ethics and sustainability.
The first essays are:
The Raisin Bread Culture (by Arnold)
A Gift for Future Generations(by West).
(Please note, #'s 2 & 3 make participation in this forum "no small
order"!)
We admit that we do not know if our attempt will fail or succeed. The quality of our collaboration is probably the greatest success determinant.
For the time being, the only commitments we ask of you, as forum
participants and co-designers, are to:
Anybody will be free to participate by simply subscribing to the mailing list, namely,
EandS-forum-request@nature.berkeley.edu,
and typing "request" without quotations
either in
the subject line or in
the text. From then on you
will receive essays submitted by West or Arnold through this mailing list.
Each three weeks a new essay will be posted by Arnold and West (one each).
These essays will be sent to you by the mailing list and will also be
available here on the website:
Participants are encouraged to submit questions or short responses to initiate/contribute to conversations relevant to the general subjects of ethics and sustainability. Send these questions/responses back to EandS-forum@nature.berkeley.edu
Your submission back to the mailing list will be automatically posted
on the forum web-site at:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~slist/EandS-forum/threads.html
All conversations posted to the mailing list can be followed at this
link (you can get to it from here or the forum home-page)!
If participants feel their questions need to receive a direct response
from either Arnold or West (or both!) in addition to the normal,
spontaneous dialogue, please put "Arnold" or "West" or "Arnold and West" in the subject line of your e-mail message. The forum facilitators will make sure that the message gets to Arnold/West by e-mail, fax, hard-copy, or through direct conversation and t
hat a response is posted back.
We suggest that messages specifically for Arnold and West be posted by October 21st. Then Arnold and West will have time to read, reflect, and respond in their next posting by October 31st.
Arnold and West are not e-mail experts/afficionadoes (at least not yet!), so any patience you care to exercise regarding their responses will be enormously appreciated.
If any participant cares to provide Arnold and/or West with suggestions - or is willing to play a more active role as a guide regarding the effective use of the Internet/www, then please make your interest known.
As forum participants, we may also choose to serve one another as guides and/or as co-designers of our collaborative learning process.
Given the challenging purpose of this forum - "to support learning about ethics and sustainablity" - we've given serious consideration to some guidelines. Thus far, 4 have begun to emerge. These guidelines are presented here as suggestions for enabling pa
rticipants/co-designers to experience this forum being on-purpose.
This experimental forum is an attempt to use basic Internet technologies in recreating an online variation of the special learning environments that Arnold and West have been enthusiastically nurturing for a long time.
Simon, Steve and Paul! (forum co-designers)