Teach the Web Community Call Recap, Feb. 27, 2014

The new Teach The Web community call focus on the theory and practice of teaching the web. We meet every Thursday at 10:00ET / 15:00 UTC and are joined by teachers, librarians, after  school educators, non-profit organizers, artists, technologists and  others who want to share skills and empower learners as creators of the  web. This call merges the previous Web Literacy and Webmaker mentor calls.
Moving forward, we’ll post a short recap of each call on this blog, and will point out ways for you to provide feedback, connect with guest speakers or otherwise get involved. You can also view the archived agenda and notes by visiting our wiki.
This week, our first guest was Marc Lesser, Senior Director of Learning Design at MOUSE, an organization that empowers underserved youth across the US to learn, lead and create with technology, preparing them with skills essential for their academic and career success. They’re also one of the founding members of Hive NYC Learning Network.
MOUSE recently received a grant to develop original content and learning resources that align with the Web Literacy Map. Their focus is on activity-based resources for middle and high school-aged students in both formal and informal settings. They are also hosting a Webmaking Summer Institute where they’ll bring educators from across their network to NYC to discuss web literacy, learn how to use Webmaker tools, then create teams within their schools to teach the web to their peers. Their hope is to create a template for other organizations to host similar trainings.

Screen Shot 2014-03-03 at 9.18.54 AM

Next Kat Baybrooke from the Webmaker Community Team shared that we’re in the process of re-designing Teaching Kits, and looking for feedback on the current design brief. Mozilla is looking to offer more modular build options, simpler back-end code, usability across devices, ways to address attribution and more. Please leave comments on the design brief, or email Kat with feedback or questions.
Cassie MacDaniel from the Webmaker Design Team is working on building better search experience, and is curious about current or desired search capabilities on Webmaker.org.

  • What kinds of things do you regularly search for?
  • What kinds of information would you expect to be able to find with an “advanced search” option?

Mockup of advanced search results


Help us make Webmaker search better! Visit this bug and provide feedback, or contact Cassie directly.
Doug Belshaw, who leads on Mozilla’s Web Literacy work, proposed a few changes to the Web Literacy Map. One involves splitting up the “Sharing & Collaborating” competency into two distinct elements. The other involves changing “Design & Accessibility” to “Design,” and representing “Accessibility” as a cross-cutting theme across various competencies. Visit this post for more context or comment directly on this thread in the Webmaker listserv.
MozRep Rifaz Nahiyan is hosting an event this weekend in Bangladesh at a local university and is working on a basic blog template in Thimble. Here’s his latest version, and we look forward to seeing how it develops.
Click for the complete notes from our Feb. 27th call.

How to get involved in upcoming Teach the Web calls:

  • Join a call any week, or every week! They’re hosted every Thursday for one hour starting at 10:00 ET / 15:00 UTC. Visit this wiki for more details and a complete archive of previous agenda and notes.
  • Feel free to lurk silently, participate on the call etherpad, or even add your own agenda items!
  • If you’d like to be a guest speaker or suggest a guest speaker, post it on the Webmaker listserv or email Lainie DeCoursy on the Webmaker Community Team.