Free Technology Academy

= The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is an international institution based in Europe, whose goal is to provide online education, at master level, about Free Software.

URL = http://www.ftacademy.org

Description

"A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the Open University of the Netherlands and 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."

Interview

Marco Fioretti spoke with Wouter Tebbens, president of the Free Knowledge Institute and FTA director, to know how the FTA works and what are its plans for the next year. (= 2011)

"Stop: Wouter, what is the FTA's mission and philosophy?

Wouter: The FTA aims to contribute to a society that permits all users to study, participate and build upon existing knowledge without restrictions. The starting point of our project is shared development and shared exploitation. Anyone willing to contribute to what we have already built and benefiting from that is welcome. All software and educational materials used and produced by the FTA come with the freedom to use, modify, copy and distribute. We view those as minimum rights to foster a strong community around the education of Free Software. Within the courses at the FTA we practice these freedoms and values.

Stop: What is your methodology?

Wouter: The FTA's educational methodology is based on distance learning for which we have set up the FTA online campus. Learners participate in a virtual classroom, one per course, where they discuss in groups and work on assignments. These assignments can be little projects, essays, setting up and testing certain software, etc. Each group works with a tutor who guides the learners when necessary and provides feedback on their assignments.

Stop: Do FTA lessons happen in real time?

Wouter: No. Besides being based completely on online participation and distance learning, our courses are also asynchronous. There are no fixed moments that participants need to be online: people come in every day or two as fits best with their working hours or other personal commitments. As each course takes place over 13 weeks, there are of course certain deadlines for activities and assignments of course." (http://stop.zona-m.net/education/free-technology-academy-working-offer-more-free-software-online-teaching)

Full interview at http://stop.zona-m.net/education/free-technology-academy-working-offer-more-free-software-online-teaching