The Free Technology Academy has announced the availability of Introduction to Free Software, one of a series of modules teaching/learning modules which intend to support university level courses that use free software to teach computer and technology concepts.
The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is a joint initiative from several educational institutes in various countries. It aims to contribute to a society that permits all users to study, participate and build upon existing knowledge without restrictions.
This group is supported by several organizations including three European universities. Check the
About link for details.
January 18, 2010
At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) there were several announcements of new devices that fit, if only loosely, into the category of ebook reader. Examples include the large format (and expensive) QUE from Plastic Logic, the Skiff from Hearst which is directed at newspapers.
Education isn’t the center of the CES focus, but some of the hype surrounding the ebook reader category certainly makes us hope that some educationally suitable tool will be forthcoming.
The call for digital textbooks is going out, too. Will the publishers respond, and if they don’t will the open education community begin to fill the void?
This site, Opentextbook.org is attempting to compile a list of as many open textbook efforts as possible and to provide hosting service for any open textbook efforts that desire it.
January 12, 2010
Paul Hewson at the University of Plymouth got in touch about a textbook he is working on, ‘Multivariate Statistics with R’. The book is currently being used for teaching the UK and in Italy. On it he writes:
This is intended (eventually) to be a book “Introductory Statistics with R”. There are already rather a lot of multivariate statistics books around, but I wanted to emphasise the applications (and introduce contemporary applications) with a little more mathematical detail than happens in many such “application/software” based books.
The book itself, along with source material, is under the GFDL and available from the opentextbook subversion respository:
April 3, 2009
An digital version of How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates has recently been under the [GFDL](
http://howwikipediaworks.com/apf.html). From the blurb:
Wikipedia is made up of people just like you: students, professors, and everyday experts and fans. With about 10,000 articles added to Wikipedia each week, there are plenty of opportunities to join this global community. How Wikipedia Works explains how you can make the Web’s go-to source for information even better.
You can read the book online, or download an 8mb zip file of the HTML.
October 3, 2008
Musopen, a “library of copyright free music”, is soliciting for contributions to a public domain music theory textbook:
As any college student will tell you, textbooks are priced outrageously high. That’s not really news of course. Yet one of our volunteers was especially shocked recently to see how expensive a music theory textbook was for his class and suggested that Musopen find a way to print professionally bound theory books, equal or better to what exists, to solve this problem. We liked the idea so much we decided to do just that.
Today we are announcing the formation of the Musopen PD Music Theory text book project. I will be updating with more news and details as we get closer to a final product, but I can say we are already excited to have found several partners who will allow us to produce books equal to what exist currently as well as web integration better than any previous textbook has had in the past. All this for the cost of the ink and paper only.
If you or someone you know might be interested in writing, advising, or otherwise helping out, please sign up here!
October 2, 2008
A brief note to say there’s a post with information about the open textbook virtual meeting at the Open Knowledge Foundation blog!
October 2, 2008
We’ve arranged a virtual meeting later this month for anyone interested in open textbooks! See this post on the main Open Knowledge Foundation blog for more details.
September 11, 2008
A brief but interesting little booklet from the Tactical Technology Collective on information design. From the blurb:
Modern life is saturated with ever increasing amounts of information, advertising and media with little time to digest what is being said. Against this background, NGOs and advocates too often find the information they want to communicate, either buried in long reports full of professional jargon and statistics, or overlooked in an endless stream of media releases. Whether communicating to the public, staff, donors or government officials, information design can help NGOs communicate with more impact, increase accessibility, and present issues powerfully.
Visualizing Information for Advocacy is available as a PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike license.
August 12, 2008
Introduction to Programming Using Java by David J. Eck at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is available under a CC-BY license. From the blurb:
WELCOME TO the fifth edition of Introduction to Programming Using Java, a free, on-line textbook on introductory programming, which uses Java as the language of instruction. This book is directed mainly towards beginning programmers, although it might also be useful for experienced programmers who want to learn something about Java. It is certainly not meant to provide complete coverage of the Java language.
July 7, 2008
Dr. Genick Bar-Meir of the Potto Project (which we posted about last October) has released a new book – The Basics of Fluid Mechanics, available under the GFDL.
Dr. Bar-Meir is looking for someone to take over the chapter that deals with material properties. If anyone might be interested in contributing – please get in touch!
May 23, 2008
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