Today's newsletter has some innovations:
- An article about Online Learning as a means of helping children and people of all ages all over the world gain better educations
- Three special Upcoming Events with clickable Explanations and Descriptions
- A Brief Link to an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times about the often neglected subject of mental illness
You are invited to write a Letter to the Editor about any of the content of this newsletter as an email to socialjustice@catholicsofpleasanton.org
with "Letter to the Editor" as Subject.
Please invite any friends who might like to begin receiving this newsletter to send an email with Subject: "Join Email List" to socialjustice@catholicsofpleasanton.org.
A list of active websites that are resources for social justice work related to local, California, national and international issues has been created along with lists of articles from this newsletter for 2012 and 2013.
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Upcoming Events
Thursday, February 6, 7:00 P.M.
Social Justice Committee meeting
"Cry Room", St. Elizabeth Seton Church
All are welcome to attend
Friday, February 7, 7:00 P.M.
Talk on Islamaphobia by Zahre Billoo, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, examining the roots of anti-Muslim hate, the funding which makes it possible, its overlaps with other forms of bigotry, and how best to challenge it
Newman Hall/ Holy Spirit Parish, 2700 Dwight Way, Berkeley
Admission free. More information: 510-499-0537
Wednesday, February 12, 5:00-6:00 P.M.
Religion Chat: continuation of 5 minute talks on "How Does Your Tradition Describe God?" sponsored by Interfaith Interconnect - info Ruth Gaston, 925 443 7140
Asbury United Methodist Church, 4743 East Avenue, Livermore
Three Special Events
Saturday, February 15, 8:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M.
4th Annual Social Justice Forum
Holy Names University, Valley Center for the Performing Arts, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakland, 94619 More info
Tuesday, March 11, 9:00 - 10:00 A.M. repeated 8:00 - 9:00 P.M.
Live online presentation to initiate help for people everywhere in connecting with each other and taking action on any issue that concerns them, see http://www.idealist.org/March11 and further information.
Friday, Saturday & Sunday, March 14, 15 & 16,
Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, CA, http://recongress.org/
See more info.
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Action Alert
Support the long-term unemployed as they search for decent work!
Over one million jobless Americans lost a vital source of support at the end of 2013 when Congress failed to extend the Emergency Unemployment program.
Unless Congress extends emergency unemployment, millions more will lose this financial lifeline over the course of the year. Call your Senators and Representative and ask them to protect extend this vital assistance.
Take Action NOW!
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Online Learning
Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) may never completely replace college education, major universities and significant for-profit and not-for profit organizations are devoting major efforts to their development. MIT, Stanford and Princeton University offer classes to a global audience, although not for college credit. Founded by MIT and Harvard and augmented by other top notch schools in the U.S. and around the world edX currently offers 127 courses at no charge, see course list.
Private organizations also offer classes, such as Udacity, with free computer science classes, and Khan Academy, with over 4,200 free micro-lectures available via YouTube.
Coursera, an online-enrollment platform, is now offering education for millions of people around the world. A certification is consigned by Coursera for students who are able to complete an adequate performance in the course. Free online courses are administered by the website in fields such as computer science, medicine, networks, and social sciences. The lectures are recorded into series of short videos discussing different topics and assignments in a weekly basis.
Partially copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-learning
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Brief Links
First Up, Mental Illness. Next Topic Is Up to You. (Opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, January 5, 2014), link
'Neglected Topic' Winner: Climate Change (Opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, January 19, 2014), link
The Crisis of European Democracy (New York Times opinion piece written by Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate and a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, May 23, 2012), link
The Jesuit Post, https://thejesuitpost.org/
Assessing 20 Years of NAFTA (audio recording of KQED's Jan. 13 radio show, "Forum" with links to archives of three related NPR programs), link
Facing History and Ourselves (Educational organization dealing with racism, intolerance, etc.), link
List of over educational 300 links compiled by Facing History & Ourselves, link
An anthropologist's reflection about the Scripture readings for Jan. 21 and a link to Jesuit thought on sustainability, link
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