Session Information
29 SES 07 A, Parallel Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
In late 2009, a few teachers of the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (ESEV), Portugal, joined together and started the OpenLab ESEV project to promote, foster and support activities related to the use of Free/Libre Software (Stallman, 2010) and Open Source Software (Perens, 1999), Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2012), Free file formats and more flexible copyright licenses for creative and educational purposes. ESEV is a portuguese public institution of higher education founded in 1983 as a teacher education institution. Currently, it offers nine undergraduate and 13 Master's programs, most of them related to education but also including peformance studies, arts and multimedia, sports, media and advertising and public relations. Most of the OpenLab ESEV activities are related to the teacher education and arts and multimedia programs, with a special focus on the later.
Since the start of OpenLab, a few teachers, students and former students, on a voluntary basis, sometimes with the collaboration of outside experts, have been working on a vast range of activities. Framing their actions and discussons is a project justified on ethical and strategic grounds that we believe to be critical for the times when "The Internet is the fabric of our lives" (Castells, 2004, p.15) and society is shaped by the economics of mass collaboration (Tapscott & Williams, 2007), the networked information economy (Benkler, 2006) and the non-monetary economy of the Revolutionary Wealth (Toffler & Toffler, 2007).
Going beyond the desire to promote informed choices as the motivating challenge that emerged from an environment characterized by the lack of knowledge of the existing Free/Libre alternatives and by work habits exclusively built around proprietary software, we share the view that “The decision to work with free software is also an ethical decision, the expression of a desire to live in a world organised in a different way, where the artificial barriers that benefit only a few are eliminated” (Soler, 2008, p.16). In the context of the arts and multimedia program, also means realizing that “Free software (...) brings with it powerful new production methods and vibrant communities, which challenge artists to change the ways things of all kinds are made” (Griffiths, 2008, p. 248), and that “the workflow in f/loss is not pre-determined for the artist (...) and opens a world of possibilities and creativity” (Kenlon, 2011, p. 42).
In this paper, we'll present several activities developed since the beginning of the project by focusing on our own learning process, on implemented projects and initiatives, and on successes and difficulties. The overview is intended as background for the examination of the use of F/LOSS in arts educational settings, specially at the higher education level. The purpose is to further the discussion about free culture and free knowledge: from its merits to our practice, and then to possible spaces still to be explored.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press. Castells, M. (2004). A Galáxia Internet – reflexões sobre Internet, Negócios e Sociedade . Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Downes, S. (2011). Free Learning Essays on open educational resources and copyright. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/files/FreeLearning.pdf Griffiths, D. (2008). On free software art, design, communities and committees. In A. Mansoux, & M. Valk (Eds.), FLOSS+ART (pp. 248-253). Poitiers: GOTO10. Kenlon, S. (2011, May). Making your workflow work for you. Libre Graphics Magazine, nº 1.2. http://libregraphicsmag.com/ Lessig, L. (2004). Free culture. New York: Penguin Press. Myers, R. (2008). Open Source Art Again. In A. Mansoux, & M. Valk (Eds.), FLOSS+ART (pp. 294-313). Poitiers: GOTO10. Perens, B. (1999). The Open Source Definition. In C. DiBona, S. Ockman, & M. Stone (Eds), Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. Sebastopol: O'Reilly Media. Retrieved from http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/toc.html Soler, P. (2008). Artists and Free Software – an Introduction. In A. Mansoux, & M. Valk (Eds.), FLOSS+ART (pp. 14-17). Poitiers: GOTO10. Stallman, R. M. (2010). Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman (2nd Edition). Boston: GNU PRESS/Free Software Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfsii2.pdf Tapscott, D. & Williams, A. D. (2007). Wikinomics – A Nova Economia das Multidões Inteligentes. Lisboa: Quidnovi. Toffler, A. & Toffler, H. (2007). Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives. New York: Crown Publishing UNESCO (2012). 2012 Paris OER Declaration. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/English_Paris_OER_Declaration.pdf
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.