As a movement, the left tends to be creative, flexible and ambitious. We are masters of camaraderie and welcome anyone who wants to be involved. We are not, however, always as intentional as we should be about sharing our knowledge.

This topic has been the focus of conversation at multiple meetings within the last year. Last November, at the Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) meeting on confronting U.S. militarism, one group suggested that a weakness of the anti-militarism movement was lack of training. They concluded that this should be addressed through an accessible educational program. In April of this year, at the LASC conference in D.C., youth activists met. Through their discussions it became clear that a weakness of the movement was its inability to pass knowledge on to younger activists.

In hopes of bringing activists of all ages together to share their experiences and discuss new ideas about putting an end to a culture of militarism, the Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ) is now offering online training courses. These courses strive to teach activists of all levels and ages new skills while connecting them with their peers.

In order to make the courses as accessible and affordable as possible, the staff of the AGJ knew that they could not be place-based. By eliminating the need to travel and devote long-periods of time to education, online training becomes an option for busy activists who cannot leave their day jobs. Innovative and easy-to-use online platforms make taking a course as simple as visiting a website or writing an email. Despite the online format, participants are still encouraged to communicate with their peers; and they will receive feedback from instructors. Courses may also utilize live-time phone or video conferencing to allow for more direct and personal interactions.

There are already a number of respectable activist training programs. It is our hope that by offering our courses online, however, we will be able to reach another set of activists who are excited to learn and share ideas. Hopefully this will be a move toward formalizing our mechanisms for knowledge-sharing and addressing the issues that have been raised at recent meetings.

The five-week online courses opened successfully in August, 2011. A new set of courses will begin January 13th. Each course costs $250. This price includes all materials, instruction, etc. Next session we will be offering the courses "Empire as a Way of Life," Strategic Research on US Militarism for Activist Campaigns, Community Defense Media 101 (Policing the Police), and US Policy Toward Latin America: From Drug Wars to Banana Wars. Please visit http://afgj.org/?page_id=1272 for detailed course descriptions and to enroll.

[The author is with the Alliance for Global Justice in Washington.]