The Information Society Open School is a collaborative learning environment on issues relevant to human development and information and communication technologies.

Modeled after the open source model, all training materials and courses are free of charge, can be downloaded, copied, distributed, modified and enhanced by anyone. Community members can contribute back to the material with their enhancements.

Furthermore, local stakeholders are welcome and encouraged to download courses material and prepare their own real life workshops and even charge for them if they like.

The methodology is based on project-oriented learning, collaborative building of knowledge and content focuses on the generation of a significant social impact with the use of Information Technologies.

Those wishing to receive guidance, orientation, mentorship or personal one-on-one support from trainers, can pay a US$50-150 fee per course for the additional attention. Benefits for paying students include: a printed diploma, mentoring and evaluation, video and voice conference with the course facilitator, detailed review and evaluation of their projects and activities, including recommendations on project proposals.

It opens its doors on December 15th, 2008, with a set of already tested and popular workshops prepared by our team:

1. ICT for Dev Strategy formulation.
2. ICT in Education.
3. ICT and Social Entrepreneurship.
4. ICT Activities and Open Source Apps for Education.
5. e-Government and Digital Cities.
6. Digital Storytelling.
7. ICT and Social Activism.
8. Telecenters for a Change.
9. Virtual Campus: Creation and Management.
10. Virtual Communities Management.
11. Virtual Libraries and Digital Publishing.

Contact me at carlos@educar.org, if you are interested in participating or would like more information prior our launch.