p2p-research January 8, 2011
I haven't yet got far into reading about FTA (so this is not a deeply considered response). The discussion copied below seems relevant to many ideas I have long been thinking about, but have not yet written up, regarding future directions of learning, access to learning, alternative delivery, accreditation for learning outside of traditional structures etc.
Useful links within the emails below are :
- FTA Register now at https://ftacademy.org/registration-form
- Keep in mind that many courses are also offered later in the year: http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme
- Contact details - at registrations@ftacademy.org
From: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004@gmail.com>
Date: 8 January 2011 08:20
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] FTA Announcement #11: Register Now, Guest Lectures, DocBook and New FTA Materials
To: Wouter Tebbens <wouter@freeknowledge.eu>
Cc: p2p research network <p2presearch@listcultures.org>
:Dear Wouter,
thanks for this, VERY useful reply,
actually, for here in Chiang Mai, I was thinking more of mentoring than full f2f teaching, so what you see is right on the mark,
credits is a little more difficult issue, since I think students in east asia are still much more sensitive to this issue, you just don't get hired here without the right papers (plus introductions <g>). For example, I can teach post-graduate in Belgium based on my experience, but there, I am confined to teaching 18 year olds, because they only want to see the PhD
additional request, do you know of any university in your network, who might be interested in a physical extension in SE Asia, and thereby offer 'real credits' to potential students here?
Michel
Dear Michel,sorry for the belated reply; some traditional festivities and delayed work came in between. But: I wish you and all peers a good new year where freedom and solidarity get together again.
Regarding your idea to run an educational curriculum based on the FTA, let me comment a few things. The FTA courses are designed for a online / distance education methodology mainly with course books and a series of group and individual activities under guidance of a university mentor. That said, the courses can be taught face2face as well, and some universities are doing that: they just download or link to the FTA course book(s) and work through them in a physical class room. Even with traditional lectures and slideshows if you want ;-)
If you start running these courses f2f, it might be of interest for the global community to record and stream the lectures you might organise. We could then stream them through the FTA site as well.
We'd also encourage you to make use of the FTA virtual campus: enrolled and free learners share case studies, bibliography, study projects etc etc through the various systems we have set up. Our idea is to facilitate the learning community as much as we can.
Regarding credits: you can issue your own certificate and credits, but it will depend on their recognition to value how much these are worth to the participants. With the FTA we have choosen to work with universities who recognise FTA Certificates and the ECTS credits as used in Europe. That way learners can continue their education and obtain official degrees at those universities.
Other forms of credits issued by peers might be very interesting and promising indeed. At Drumbeat Barcelona there was the badges project, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges
I think ultimately we will work towards a combination of both formal and informal credit systems (and feed the peer credit system into the formal instutions). But there is still some work to do.
Looking forward to see how this fits best in your plans. We'll be happy to help you out as much as we can.
best,
Wouter
On 12/26/2010 02:14 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
Dear Wouter, Franco:this is something I have been contemplating lately i.e. the possibility
of a curriculum based on the FTA, given or mentored through the chiang
mai commons initiative, which would give credits to thai students ...what would it take to pull this off?
MICHEL
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Franco Iacomella <yaco@gnu.org
<mailto:registrations@ftacademy.org> and we'll help you create your<mailto:yaco@gnu.org>> wrote:Permanent link: http://ftacademy.org/announce/11
FTA Announcement #11: Register Now, Guest Lectures, DocBook and New
FTA Materials
---------------------------------------------------------------------1. Last chance to register for the first term of 2011!
2. Rey Juan Carlos University joins the FTA Associate Network
3. Upcoming Guest Lectures at the FTA Campus
4. FTA books in DocBook format
5. New FTA materials published
6. About the Free Technology Academy
== 1. Last chance to register for the first term of 2011! ==Registrations for the 2011 programme are growing at a very good
pace. Remember that you can register for any course of the programme
until one week before the term starts. This means that you have time
until January 3rd to register for these courses:* The concepts of Free Software and Open Standards
* Basic GNU/Linux
* Free Software Utilities
* Network Technologies
* Web applications development
* Software development
* Deployment of Free Software and Case StudiesDon't leave it for the last minute! Register now at
https://ftacademy.org/registration-formHaving trouble choosing only a couple of courses? Keep in mind that
many of them are also offered later in the year:
http://ftacademy.org/courses/programmeIf you're still in doubt, contact us at registrations@ftacademy.org
* Contact information: contact[at]ftacademy.org <http://ftacademy.org>
own programme!== 2. Rey Juan Carlos University joins the FTA Associate Network ==
The FTA is proud to announce the incorporation of the University Rey
Juan Carlos (Spain) to its Associate Partner Network, through the
participation of the LibreSoft research group.LibreSoft offers a programme on Free Software that leads to an
official Master Degree by the URJC. The LibreSoft group will
contribute courses such as Quality Assessment of Free Software, one
of its main research topics, to the FTA programme. Apart from that,
the LibreSoft group is involved in the taskforce for an
International Master Programme in Free Software since the start,
where FTA partners cooperate to design a common curriculum.Read the official announcement here: http://ftacademy.org/announce/URJC
== 3. Upcoming Guest Lectures at the FTA Campus ==
FTA Guest Lectures are open to all: the videos will be published
online and a forum will be available for those who want to discuss
it with the lecturer. The FTA will welcome the new year with two
first-class guest lecturers: Richard M. Stallman and Benjamin Mako Hill.Richard M. Stallman is a Free Software developer and activist. He is
the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project. He
started the Free Software movement and is arguably one of the most
influential advocates of Free Software worldwide. In his lecture,
Stallman will focus on the most recent attacks to users' freedoms,
such as ACTA and DRM. This Guest Lecture will take place in February.Benjamin Mako Hill is a Debian hacker, intellectual property
researcher, activist and author. He is a free software developer and
contributes to the Debian and Ubuntu projects. He's also the author
of two best-selling technical books on the subject. He currently
serves as a member of the Free Software Foundation board of
directors and of Wikimedia Foundation's board. Hill has a Masters
degree from the MIT Media Lab and is currently a Senior Researcher
at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he studies free software
communities and business models. His lecture, entitled,
"Antifeatures", will take place in January 2011, stay tuned for the
concrete dates!== 4. FTA books in DocBook format ==
Until now, FTA coursebooks have been available in PDF format only.
This allows everyone to easily read and print them, but it has not
been easy to edit or remix the materials. Now FTA coursebooks are
also available in the DocBook format: a semantic markup language for
technical documentation. DocBook enables users to create documents
in a presentation-neutral form that captures the logical structure
of the content, which can then be published in a variety of formats,
including HTML, XHTML, EPUB, PDF, man pages, and others - without
requiring users to make any changes to the source.We expect that this new possibility will be exploited by the FTA
community. We hope that new creations take place, thereby
materializing the opportunities offered by the copyleft licenses
applied to the original course books. We invite you to discuss all
the possibilities in our community space:
http://campus.ftacademy.org/community/== 5. New FTA materials published ==
The FTA is proud to announce the availability of three new
coursebooks, all under a free Copyleft license: GNU/Linux Basic,
Implementation of Free Software Systems and the coursebook for Free
Software Tools and Utilities."GNU/Linux Basic" will be taught in all three terms of 2011. The aim
of this book is to initiate you into the world of GNU/Linux. It
covers the basics of the free software, how to use and modify
GNU/Linux to suit your needs, and how to find your way in this new
world more easily. The book is not based on any particular
distribution, but we need to specify certain actions for most of the
examples and activities, for which we will use Debian GNU/Linux.
Although this distribution is not as intuitive and user-friendly as
others, it will serve to explain all the characteristics of a
GNU/Linux-based operating system, step by step.You can get a copy of the course book, written by Joaquín López
Sánchez-Montañés, Sofia Belles Ramos, Roger Baig Viñas and Francesc
Aulí Llinàs, here: http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/13#1"Implementation of Free Software Systems" was written by Amadeu
Albós Raya and Óscar David Sánchez Jiménez. This course book
examines the deployment of Free Software systems. The reader will
become familiar with agencies and projects related to the deployment
of Free Software in the public and private sectors, and will learn
to identify and understand the consequences of the use and
exploitation of Free Software in different areas. Several case
studies will be released soon as complementary materials. The FTA
course "Deployment of Free Software Systems" is scheduled for the
first and third terms of 2011.You can get a copy of the course book here:
http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/8#1The course book "Tools and utilities in free software", written by
Jesús Corrius i Llavina, is part of the course "Free Software Tools
and Utilities". The students are introduced to some of the programs
designed for desktop environments of end users. These programs allow
users to browse the Internet securely (Mozilla), manage e-mail and
work in groups (Evolution) and create text documents, spreadsheets
and presentations (OpenOffice.org). In this course, students will
also discover how to work with these free tools in different
environments. "Free Software Tools and Utilities" will also be
taught in all three terms of 2011.Download a copy here: http://ftacademy.org/materials/fsm/10#1
Register for these courses here:
http://ftacademy.org/courses/programme/2011== 6. About the Free Technology Academy ==
A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the
Open University of the Netherlands and the University of Agder
(Norway) and led by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), the FTA has
received the support from the EC's Lifelong Learning Programme to
set up an international educational programme on Free Software. The
courses are taught completely online in a virtual campus based on
the Campus Project interoperability framework.Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning
materials are freely available through the Internet. The use of Free
Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre
Software) is rapidly expanding in governmental and private
organisations. However, still only a limited number of ICT
professionals, teachers and decision makers have sufficient
knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The Free Technology
Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level courses
that fit into larger Master Programmes at the participating
universities.* More information: http://www.ftacademy.org
p2presearch@listcultures.org <mailto:p2presearch@listcultures.org>
* Digital version: http://ftacademy.eu/announce/10
Free Technology Academy Newsletter
http://www.ftacademy.eu_______________________________________________
p2presearch mailing list