Gleducar
Encyclopedia
Gleducar is a free educational project emerged in Argentina in 2002. It is also an important NGO (Civil Association) from Argentina in the field of education and technology.
Gleducar is an independent community composed of teachers, students and education activists linked by a common interest in collective work, cooperative knowledge building and free distribution of knowledge.
The project works around different themes, such as Open Education
, Open Access, Free Knowledge, Popular Education
, peer education, collaborative learning and Free Technologies, and promotes the use of Free Software
in schools as a pedagogical and technical system, with the objective of changing the paradigm of production, construction and dissemination of educational content.
It consists of an independent educational community incorporated as a self-organized NGO (Civil Association) which meets the interests and objectives of the community. Gleducar Project is the result of the sum of their community and the NGO that supports it.
. It was established as a Civil Association in 2004. Today is one of the most important educational projects in Argentina, concerning free education.
Gleducar Project was declared of National Interest by the Senate of Argentina in 2005.
It is recognized worldwide as a benchmark of free education in Latin America. In 2007 it received an Honorable Mention in the International Competition "Chris Nicol" of the Free Software Association for Progressive Communications (APC) for its outstanding work for free and sustainable education.
Gleducar's work has been an inspiration and a guide for the emergence of other similar projects and communities on the continent.
Gleducar community also develops free educational materials in conjunction with other nonprofit organizations and working with the Argentine State. It has a large repository of free educational resources and a wide range of educational free software tools.
Gleducar develops pedagogical and technical skills on collaborative knowledge production, free education and free software.
It regularly organizes two annual events CoLCIT (Congress of Free Culture for Tertiary Institutions) and Epuel (Meeting for a Free Education). It also participates in conferences and local, regional and international meetings on the subject.
It has worked with the argentinian National Ministry of Education in the development of free educational materials. However, the NGOs does not currently receive financial contributions from any government entity.
Gleducar has also carried out numerous actions in conjunction with the Fundación Vía Libre
. It has also developed open source projects and has carried out joint activities with other organizations such as Fairness Foundation, Caritas, CTERA (Confederation of Education Workers of Argentina), AMSAFE, SoLAr, FM La Tribu, CaFeLUG, LUGRo, Tuquito GNU/Linux, Wikimedia Argentina, among others. The project also hosts and promotes other initiatives such as Argenclic, Free University, among others.
Internationally, the project has participated in and acceded to various joint statements on access to knowledge and free / open education as the "Santo Domingo Declaration", the Cape Town Open Education Declaration
and the "Charter for innovation, creativity and access to knowledge".
It also works on issues related to the free movement of knowledge, participating alongside other civic organizations on initiatives and campaigns warning about the threat of Intellectual Property
regimes for the common cultural heritage, and on mobilizations against policies that victimizes the net neutrality and the freedom of expression on the Internet, on various occasions.
Gleducar community has resources as: an educational wiki which already contains more than 2,000 free educational resources (more than 5000 pages in total) and over 5,600 registered users; a virtual campus, a server webquest, multiple mailing lists with over 570 members and even a personal sites aggregator to centralize and register changes in some members's blogs of the Gleducar community
The technical infrastructure used by the NGO is provided by USLA (Free Software Users Argentina).
Gleducar is an independent community composed of teachers, students and education activists linked by a common interest in collective work, cooperative knowledge building and free distribution of knowledge.
The project works around different themes, such as Open Education
Open education
Not to be confused with Open educational resourcesOpen education is a collective term that refers to educational organizations that seek to eliminate barriers to entry. Such institutions, for example, would not have academic admission requirements. Such universities include Open University in...
, Open Access, Free Knowledge, Popular Education
Popular education
Popular education is a concept grounded in notions of class, political struggle, and social transformation. The term is a translation from the Spanish educación popular or the Portuguese educação popular and rather than the English usage as when describing a 'popular television program,' popular...
, peer education, collaborative learning and Free Technologies, and promotes the use of Free Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
in schools as a pedagogical and technical system, with the objective of changing the paradigm of production, construction and dissemination of educational content.
It consists of an independent educational community incorporated as a self-organized NGO (Civil Association) which meets the interests and objectives of the community. Gleducar Project is the result of the sum of their community and the NGO that supports it.
Project Objectives
- Raise awareness of the educational community about the importance of computers as an educational support tool and as a facilitator in Cooperative Knowledge Building.
- Create a community for sharing ideas, experiences and projects related to the topic of technological integration and use of free software among the various educational institutions, students, teachers and community in Argentina.
- To promote the educational use of Internet in schools as a tool for creative production and research, and as a communication mean for ideas and knowledge.
- Inform to general community and educational community particularly about the benefits offered by GNU / Linux and Free Software as an alternative to other systems with similar characteristics.
- Provide advice to schools and teachers in the area of technological integration and development of real integrating projects.
- Attract computer specialists to the educational community and vice versa, to accomplish the freedom of speech and communicative exchange, transferring the love of learning and challenges that promotes a true shared learning.
History and Development
Gleducar Project was born around 2002 in the city of Cañada Rosquín, Santa Fé, ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. It was established as a Civil Association in 2004. Today is one of the most important educational projects in Argentina, concerning free education.
Gleducar Project was declared of National Interest by the Senate of Argentina in 2005.
It is recognized worldwide as a benchmark of free education in Latin America. In 2007 it received an Honorable Mention in the International Competition "Chris Nicol" of the Free Software Association for Progressive Communications (APC) for its outstanding work for free and sustainable education.
Gleducar's work has been an inspiration and a guide for the emergence of other similar projects and communities on the continent.
Actions
Gleducar carries out projects to improve computer labs, settled on dozens of migrations to Free Software conducted in schools in Argentina, that have obtained high-quality resources for teaching.Gleducar community also develops free educational materials in conjunction with other nonprofit organizations and working with the Argentine State. It has a large repository of free educational resources and a wide range of educational free software tools.
Gleducar develops pedagogical and technical skills on collaborative knowledge production, free education and free software.
It regularly organizes two annual events CoLCIT (Congress of Free Culture for Tertiary Institutions) and Epuel (Meeting for a Free Education). It also participates in conferences and local, regional and international meetings on the subject.
It has worked with the argentinian National Ministry of Education in the development of free educational materials. However, the NGOs does not currently receive financial contributions from any government entity.
Gleducar has also carried out numerous actions in conjunction with the Fundación Vía Libre
Fundación Vía Libre
Fundación Vía Libre of Córdoba, Argentina, is an NGO working on the social implications of information and communication technologies throughout Latin America, with very strong ties to the region's software libre community, to academia, to other civil society organizations, and to the global Free...
. It has also developed open source projects and has carried out joint activities with other organizations such as Fairness Foundation, Caritas, CTERA (Confederation of Education Workers of Argentina), AMSAFE, SoLAr, FM La Tribu, CaFeLUG, LUGRo, Tuquito GNU/Linux, Wikimedia Argentina, among others. The project also hosts and promotes other initiatives such as Argenclic, Free University, among others.
Internationally, the project has participated in and acceded to various joint statements on access to knowledge and free / open education as the "Santo Domingo Declaration", the Cape Town Open Education Declaration
Cape Town Open Education Declaration
The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is a major international statement on open access, open education and open educational resources. It emerged from a conference on open education hosted in Cape Town on 14 and 15 September 2007 by the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Open Society Institute...
and the "Charter for innovation, creativity and access to knowledge".
It also works on issues related to the free movement of knowledge, participating alongside other civic organizations on initiatives and campaigns warning about the threat of Intellectual Property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
regimes for the common cultural heritage, and on mobilizations against policies that victimizes the net neutrality and the freedom of expression on the Internet, on various occasions.
Resources provided by Gleducar
Gleducar provides multiple resources for teachers in particular and to all who wish to undertake free projects related to the C3. The space is provided at no economic cost on the condition of using a free license that -minimally- allows to share and lead free materials generated.Gleducar community has resources as: an educational wiki which already contains more than 2,000 free educational resources (more than 5000 pages in total) and over 5,600 registered users; a virtual campus, a server webquest, multiple mailing lists with over 570 members and even a personal sites aggregator to centralize and register changes in some members's blogs of the Gleducar community
The technical infrastructure used by the NGO is provided by USLA (Free Software Users Argentina).