While I haven’t posted too much about it on Arcadia Pod, I do occasionally take free MOOC classes, I’ve done a few reviews on my other site Great Odin’s Raven! in the past. To quote that page “For those not “in the know” MOOCs (or Massive Open Online Courses) are a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people. Their value really comes from their ability to deliver high quality higher learning classes for free to places that have no access to such a service. When EDX started, for instance, I was taking classes constantly – ones about epidemics, and space science – just all sorts of random topics.” In the past most of the major MOOC providers were entirely free and came with certificates of completion, now some of them have paywalls to keep everything running. I enjoy Coursera a lot because it still can be enjoyed for free without any features being removed, you basically pay for the credentials now.

A Voice of Their Own. Women’s Spirituality in the Middle Ages is a “sequel” of sorts to another class offered by the University of Barcelona called Magic in the Middle Ages. That class was very well done, and had a lot of information I was unaware of. the only stumbling block for some is that the class is delivered by a group of instructors speaking in thick accents, as Spanish is their native tongue. Some are crystal clear, but others required me to use subtitles on certain things. That said, this is definitely not a deal breaker in any way.

This class is more Christian leaning, as it deals with early Christian mysticism, but it’s interesting because it talks mostly about how women were persecuted and even executed as heretics because of how the church ran things during the times of the Inquisitors. Having a background in Gnosticism, seeing topics covered such as The Cathars, was interesting to me. I know many that read my stuff are Pagan, so if you look at this from the perspective of “look how bad the church was” its an interesting class to take.

Have you ever heard about medieval mysticism or medieval heresies? Have you ever wondered about the particular role women played in medieval spirituality? Do Hildegard of Bingen, Clare of Assisi, Marguerite Porete, the Cathar ladies or Isabel de Villena ring a bell? Have you ever felt like you wanted to know more about them? If your answer to any of these questions was yes, then this MOOC, A voice of their own. Women’s spirituality in the Middle ages is what you were looking for.

A Voice of their own is much more than a course. It is an invitation to follow the paths traced by the spiritual experiences of medieval women. It is a challenge that, should you let it, will take you to places where you will see and hear things that will astonish you. Here you will find medieval women playing a major role in the spiritual transformations of the Middle Ages, founding monastic movements and orders, writing about their experiences, traveling the roads of Europe to spread their ideas, creating spiritual landscapes, as well as both material an intangible architectures. In this MOOC, these women will speak to you from the past, and you’ll see that their voices still hold great validity in the present.

I did have one issue with this course, and that is the assignments. As far as I could tell, two of the quizzes are incorrect, making it basically impossible to score 100%. The oversight is that much more annoying with a limit of 3 retakes per 8 hour period. I eventually had to keep taking the tests and guessing on what they said the correct answer was through trial and error. I eventually did it, but the experience was very frustrating, and the school seems to be fairly hands off on the forums for the class. This is the downside to the classes structured more as a “learn at your own pace” model, as many of these professors obviously can’t sit around and monitor the forums for years down the line. The whole thing becomes somewhat of an archived experience over time.

All-in-all this wasn’t my favorite MOOC I’ve ever taken. While the information was great, having the inability to have a blatant issue resolved was frustrating. Perhaps Coursera needs a “report this” feature that students can utilize. I would recommend taking the first class before this one, and if you enjoyed it, like me, the second is a no-brainer despite the issues. just be prepared for chapter 3, and be sure to use the forums the best you can. If you succeed, $50 will grant you a verified certificate for ultimate bragging rights. If there are any MOOCs out there anyone would recommend, drop me a line.