 Hi, today's question is why do a course when I can get all I need for free on the internet? If you can get all you need for free on the internet that's great. Many of us I think don't have the skills to find all of the things we need all the time generally so there are benefits obviously the internet can provide a huge amount of information for free and permaculture. There's a lot of little permaculture videos up and about on the internet which is great and very exciting to see permaculture it's so easily accessible to people it's very different from when I started in the 1990s. So why do a course well I'd say there are certain aspects to doing a course which will that you can't replicate online certainly not very easily and particularly if you're just looking at videos on YouTube for instance so one of them is the the social aspects the fact that you're learning with a group of other people of like minds so many people find that one of the most important things that comes from doing a permaculture course whether it's two days four days two weeks six weekends whatever it is is being able to connect with other people of a like mind feeling that they're not this lone crazy person surrounded by or a lone sane person created created surrounded by insanity and so so coming on a course is not just about the information that's being learned it's very much about who you meet the connections you make but also the ability to learn with other people very often we see things in different way so we can learn from each other or learn the material by working with other people co-operating in that learning process. Another thing is the focus of doing a course particularly a two-week residential course for instance if you do 10 days 12 days two weeks whatever it is it's a very focused experience and some people find that too much in a sense we're kind of drifting into the realm of do I if I'm doing a course do I do six weekends or two weeks and it's very much about what is your situation if you're doing a course in person then obviously the thing that you have to do is to travel there and so some people are geographically isolated and it's very difficult for them to get to an in-person course in which case the the internet can provide something that is much more difficult to access in person of course there's a cost to doing an in-person course as well you need to pay for food and accommodation and to some degree the teaching as well so there's a financial cost so there are pros and cons to both I would say what a course does is it puts information together in a very structured way it's supports you in learning from the bottom up so you get the basics and then you build on that and there's a lot of interactivity so you'll be doing practical exercises on the design courses I teach which is not unusual there will be design activities you're actually taking the learning and applying it to your garden if it's a go home and come back for the next weekend the kind of course or a place on site you'll be designing as part of a group on site looking at a particular area with a real client with real limitations which is very important that's the real world and and that for me is is a way of really supporting the learning whereas for me if I'm just watching a video it's very easy to get distracted by other things you know there are always things going on in the house and they're dealing with and in the garden things that demanding my attention so watching a video is great but also it can might be 5 10 15 minutes and then I'm off doing something else so a course allows you to focus on permaculture learning in a chunk of time and supports you in building up the knowledge and answering the questions you have which of course is something that's very difficult to do of a video although something I'm trying to cure with this little video series is that you can ask me questions to the website and I'll pick my favorites and answer them as best I can so why do a course I would say for many reasons it will cost you some money but I think it's a much more focused way of learning you work with other people you get to build a network and you can ask questions if you are unclear about what something means you've got that two-way interaction and it doesn't necessarily work for everybody we don't all have finances to do it or the geographical location that we can get to but if you can I highly recommend it it's the way I've learned permaculture and the way I've found the best way to teach it as well