Friday, June 19, 2015

the Earth keeps memory......

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I've just begun a class on Hadrian's Wall.  So cool!  It's being taught from Newcastle, which is right on the Wall.  The instructor has been "filmed" talking to us, standing right by the Wall.

Milecastle 39 on Hadrian's Wall
 Milecastle 39.  By Adam Cuerden (Photograph by uploader) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


Last year I took Roman Architecture, which was an interesting class, but taught from the U.S. -- all slides, no "talking while standing right next to the object of interest."  How cool to take a class taught from the location in question! 



I've just watched a lecture about aerial photography and the way it's used in archaeology.  I'd heard about that when I took Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets a couple of years ago, and now I'm getting another look.

Here's what one of my classmates has to say:

"How astonishing that the earth keeps memory of everything done to it. And we can retrieve the knowledge of it so much later."

Indeed!



Not to mention we can learn about it from the comfort and privacy of our own homes (while imagining a visit to the north of England..........!). 

Wow.  What an excellent time to be alive!

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2 comments:

Jeanie said...

You do take some of the most interesting classes! Field trip, maybe?

I need orange said...

People talk about why these Massive Open Online Classes are useful (to anyone other than the students).......

I can't imagine they aren't increasing tourism to the places we learn about in our classes. I know that I have developed an interest in visiting Edmonton, for example, as my Dino class was taught from there, as well as the Royal Tyrell Museum and the provincial lands where the people who taught that class do some of their digging....

As well as a more-recent interest in the north of England. :-)