On Oct. 23, more than 1 million people around the United States will take part in the 15th annual Lights On Afterschool campaign. It’s an effort lead by the Afterschool Alliance to celebrate afterschool programs and their important role in the lives of young people, their families and communities.
Mozilla is excited to be a partner in this initiative! We created the Lights On Afterschool Webmaker Challenge–a fun activity that gives practitioners and youth in afterschool programs a chance to unleash their creativity—and learn some coding—by making their own digital afterschool posters using Thimble, our educational code editor.
Celebrating web literacy in afterschool programs across the US
We want educators and young people to see the web as a platform for creativity. Digital media and technology are constantly changing the way young people learn and interact with the world around them, and it’s vital that we provide them with the skills and know-how required to read, write, and participate effectively on the web.
The Webmaker Challenge is a simple, fun activity to help afterschool programs develop students’ webmaking and digital literacy skills. Staff and students will design their own digital poster to share the things they love about their afterschool program, while also learning a bit of HTML, CSS and concepts including remix and collaboration.
We created a step-by-step teaching guide to help afterschool facilitators and practitioners through every step in the process. They’ll work with students to share and reflect on their afterschool experiences, then they’ll create poster sketches, choose media and other images, remix and publish their digital posters! You can do this project as a group with one computer, or in teams if you’re fortunate enough to have multiple computers. If you can’t access the Internet, you can always try an activity from the Lo-Fi No-Fi Kit instead to teach other web literacy skills.
Share new skills and earn money for your afterschool programs
As an added bonus to participation, six programs that participate in the Lights On Afterschool Webmaker Challenge will be chosen at random to win $500! Select the box for the Webmaker Challenge when registering your event for Lights On Afterschool, or complete the activity and earn the Web Literacy Skill Sharer badge to win. See more here.
How to get involved
- Register your Lights On Afterschool event, and check that you plan to take the Lights On Afterschool Webmaker Challenge. If you’ve already registered your event, email lightson@afterschoolalliance.org and let them know you’ll be taking the Webmaker Challenge! Use the same email that you used to register, so they know which event to modify.
- Review the Webmaker Challenge Teaching Kit.
- Launch the Activity! Work with youth in your program to make digital posters highlighting the value of your afterschool program anytime in October to help celebrate Lights On Afterschool and build digital literacy skills.