Free Geek offers a wide range of educational opportunities. While most of the learning that takes place at Free Geek is hands-on, Free Geek offers a wide variety of traditional classes. Classes are free to our volunteers and available for a fee of $10 to the wider community.

To see class times and dates, please check out our class calendar page. To sign up for a class, please visit the front desk, or call (503)232-9350 when we’re open and press 0 to reach the front desk.

Current Class Offerings

Adoption Class: After Adoption volunteers complete their 24 hours, they are required to take the Adoption Class to receive Tech Support where they will learn the “ins and outs” of their new computers.
Command Line for Builders: Hands-on class serves as an introduction to using the GNU/Linux command line. Some basic commands are introduced, but the focus is on familiarity with the form of commands. This is a prerequisite for the Build Workshops. Prerequisites: none.
Super Adopter: This class is designed to give an adopter more control over their computer. We cover creating and administering users, installing programs in several different ways, fixing problems and some security. We look at the structure of the filesystem and how to find important files in it. The class involves some command-line.
OpenOffice Word Processor: This class provides an introduction to OpenOffice word processor. Students learn how to manage their files, edit files, and do cool things with their documents.
OpenOffice Spreadsheet: This class covers the “ins” and “outs” of this OpenOffice program. Students learn how to create a budget and let the program do all of the math for them.
Gimp Fundamentals: This class offers an introduction to the Gimp Image Editor.
Advanced Gimp: This class builds on the Gimp Fundamentals class. While Gimp Fundamentals is not a pre-requisite, some knowledge of image editing is required.
CD Rip and Burn: Learn how to burn and rip CDs using your Freekbox.
Audio Editing Using Audacity: Learn to edit audio using Audacity. Bring your audio editing questions with you!
Bash Scripting: A six-week course on Tuesday evenings covering basic and intermediate scripting in the bash shell. We will examine a file with about 15 lines of code together each night, modify the code, run it, and come up with our own scripts. We will also get to know the “Advanced Bash Scripting Guide” and the Gnu “Bash Reference Manual” in some depth and learn to research and solve our own programming problems. User projects are encouraged.

Now that you’ve read through our class offerings, go to our class calendar page to see when your chosen class is next offered.

Not Currently Offered

These classes have been offered in the past, and may be offered again in the future. It all depends on student interest and volunteer teacher availability.

Email and Internet 101: This class is designed for people who have little or no experience using the internet. Students are shown how to create an email account and learn about basic email security issues. We also cover how to find different types of information on the internet as well as how to search for jobs.
Typing Tutor: This class is designed for people who need some typing help. It’s a low-pressure opportunity to play some fun typing games to brush up on typing skills.
Wiki Class: At Free Geek we use a Wiki, which is a collection of modifiable web pages. This class covers basic Wiki navigation and editing.
Digital Photo Editing for Beginners: This class is for people who want to start editing digital photos.
Ebay Class: An overview of how to buy and sell on Ebay!
OpenOffice Presentation: This class teaches students how to create presentations using OpenOffice Presentation.