Learning, Freedom and the Web – read all about it!

Hey, here’s an ebook! http://learningfreedomandtheweb.org

The Mozilla Foundation is going big on learning in 2012—learning through the web, learning like the web, learning about the web. Mozilla wants to create a web literate planet.

It’s a grand vision that’s expressed through things like the Mozilla Hive learning networks, Hackasaurus, web skills training, learning labs, badges and assessment, and the “open source” model itself.

You can find the kernel for many of Mozilla’s learning initiatives in the 2010 Mozilla Festival: Learning, Freedom and the Web — a 500 person meta-hackfest that took place in a Barcelona city square.

For a good part of 2011, I’ve been working with members of the Mozilla community to capture that event for posterity. We finally finished, just in time for the Mozilla Festival 2011.

Check out Learning, Freedom and the Web, the story of the 2010 Mozilla Festival. Available in PDF, HTML5, and paper.

This was a pretty big effort. Anya Kamenetz, oracle of the edupunk movement, thoroughly documented the event. She conducted extensive interviews with participants and gave it the journalistic treatment. Working with Matt Thompson, she also curated some of the best blog posts by participants, and captured the best tweets and Flickr photos. Chris Appleton, designer extraordinaire and the creator of the Festival look-and-feel, did an excellent job designing the book, with beautiful typefaces, visual elements, and layouts. Jess Klein contributed some amazing illustrations. And many, many Mozillians contributed edits (mainly through Etherpad, of course!).

You can get the book, for free, in PDF form [8MB PDF]. Or you can order a physical copy for $50. They’re pricey, but well worth it, with 247 crisp full-color pages.*

There’s also a tablet-optimized, HTML5 version, designed by the wonderful Alex Samuel and her students at Emily Carr University’s Institute for the Future of the Book. This edition includes videos from Barcelona and from the Mozilla Science Fairs, as well as interactive how-tos and social features. Huge thanks to Alex, Celeste Martin, Justin Alm, and everyone at Emily Carr!

The coolest thing about the HTML5 version is that you can hack it. It’s licensed CC – BY – SA, so you can take the source and do whatever you please with it—as long as you share. The source is on GitHub. If there’s enough interest, we can keep growing the ebook. If you see an error, or would like to add to the book, fork away!

This book was written by the participants of the 2010 Festival. But it was assembled by a core group of hard working folks. It was fun to play “air traffic control”—and I’ve gained a huge appreciation and empathy for those who work in publishing!

Check it out, let us know what you think.

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*DIY publishing is hard. These books are too expensive, even though we’re breaking even. We’re working on ways to get the price down, and are considering offering a black and white edition for under $15. Would you be interested?