This is the second in a series of blog posts where Mozilla’s Senior Director of the Webmaker Community details plans for a global network of Hive activity. The first post is here.

This was originally posted on the Hive NYC blog.

Over the last two years MacArthur and Mozilla have grown Hive NYC and Hive Chicago, helped on-board Hive Pittsburgh and Hive Toronto and responded to a growing chorus of communities eager to incorporate Hive values, ideas and platforms, or as we have dubbed it, “Hivey-ness.” As a result, we’ve developed a three-tiered engagement ladder,  outlining ways to contribute to Hive as well as the path towards creating and sustaining a Hive Learning Network.

Tier 1: Hive Learning Events

These are learning gatherings that bring network practice and connected learning principles to life for an inter-generational audience. Examples include Pop-Ups, Hack Jams, media production sessions, Maker Faires and other events. We brand these events in two ways:

• Hive Pop-Ups have an intentional program design towards fostering a “Hanging Out, Messaging Around, Geeking Out” (HOMAGO) experience. For more on HOMAGO check out this handbook written by the Yollocalli Arts Center and Hive Chicago. At these events, multiple organizations come together with some of their best programs and deliver activities via learning stations tailored towards three levels of users:

  • Those who sample (Hang Out) by searching the room for what interests them most

  • Those who lightly experience all the activities offered (Messing Around)

  • A smaller but focused group who lock into one activity for the duration of the event (Geeking Out)

Participating educators get to both contribute to and observe what it’s like to see youth self-direct their learning and design their own experience in a networked space. Often the question, “Why Hive?” is better answered after seeing a Pop-Up in action: adults see youth interacting and learning with peers, remix and re-interpret their programs, become part of the energy in the room, and perhaps most importantly, see youth travel from different activities/interactions guiding their own path through the controlled chaos. We have distilled the Hive Pop-Up into a Webmaker Teaching Kit and this video details the Brooklyn Public Library Storymakers Maker Party/Hive Pop-Up.

• Maker Party is the second event category, based on Mozilla’s global campaign to engage, excite and educate people about a production-based culture. Maker Party seeks to broaden access and equity to both digital as well as analog practices. Maker Parties are used to grow the community of people aware of connected learning and as cultivation strategy for new Hive Learning Communities.

Recently the Hive Research Lab has been studying Hive Events (Pop-Ups, Hack Jams and Maker Parties) through the lens of their two primary research areas: how Hive can foster Youth Interest-Driven Pathways and how it can act as effective infrastructure for Networked Innovation. Based on early fieldwork, Hive Research Lab has come up with design suggestions for how educators can more effectively use these events to reach these goals, ones that relate to outcomes for whole networks, member organizations and network-affiliated youth.

These events have been catalysts in helping new Hive communities emerge and we’ll share some specific examples in an upcoming post.

Tier 2: Hive Learning Communities (HLC)

Hive Learning Communities begin to use the connected learning principles and the practices of Hive to operationalize a learning network. They draw heavily from the experience of existing Hive Learning Networks whose leaders function as consultants and mentors sharing information about structure, program design and strategy. Local facilitators then adapt tools, practices, frameworks to their local contexts. They are free to self-identify themselves as Hive and use the branding assets and developmental resources that are openly networked.

Specific characteristics could Include:

• educator meet-ups

• recruitment and curation of affiliated organizations

• wider participation and implementation of communication networks

The Hive concept has really developed into a grassroots movement with Hive Learning Communities forming around the globe. Current examples include Hive India, Hive Bay Area, Hive Berlin and others.

Tier 3: Hive Learning Networks (HLN)

Hive Learning Networks are city-wide vehicles for implementing and spreading connected learning ideas, tools, practices and values. These networks are fully operationalized with a staff, sources of funding, ways to seed innovation projects and a system for convening its membership. They accept the responsibility to be engaged in the stewardship of Hive Global. New Hive Learning Networks will be admitted through a review process of the Hive Global stewarding body, MacArthur, Mozilla and a panel of independent stakeholders.

The minimum requirements for Hive Learning Networks are:

• Demonstrated alignment and programmatic commitment to connected learning values and principles

• At least one dedicated, full-time staff member

• An operational budget of at least $150K/year

• A grantmaking apparatus that seeds no less than $15K into ecosystem

• Participation in Hive Global stewardship beyond home city

Specific characteristics of the networks include:

• Demonstrated commitment to providing equitable, accessible  connected learning and web literacy opportunities to youth

• A laboratory-approach

• Portfolio of funded partnerships

• Cross-disciplinary collaboration

• Incubation of inter-connected learning experiences for youth

From our experience consulting and participating in nascent communities, we know the components of successful Hives share common categories and characteristics. We recently circulated a collaborative document to surface a common set of self-emergent values, and here are just a few:

• encompass innovative and transformative learning experiences

• understand community needs and bridge gaps in local education

• outcome-oriented

• youth interest-driven

• embody experimental, iterative, and open source practices

We are currently working in the open towards the better articulation, operation and adaptation of these three tiers as a strategy to establish Hive practices as a key driver of the spread and scale of connected learning. We’ll continue to share more plans, details and resources in the coming weeks, and we’re also interested in your feedback. If you’re already working towards building a Hive in your community, or have been considering it, we’d love to know what resonates with you, or what questions you have regarding information we’ve shared so far or even specific details to help you get started. Feel free to comment below or reach out to me directly via email.

This is the first in a series of blog posts where Chris Lawrence, Mozilla’s Senior Director of the Webmaker Community, details plans for a global network of Hive activity. These posts will provide an overview of Hive, as a philosophy and as a Webmaker strategy. They will detail Mozilla’s ongoing involvement and map a path for how Hive will spread to new cities, from initial interest to the creation of sustainable and connected networks.

Originally posted on the Hive NYC blog.

The Hive Learning Network project is a global set of values, strategies, tools and design principles. Hive has become an integral part of Mozilla’s work and has connected hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of youth engaged in interest-based production. In line with Mozilla’s mission, Hive also helps people know more, do more, and do better.

We believe 2014 will be a pivotal year in establishing Hive as a global effort linking local educators to an international community through the advancement of connected learning, web literacy, and digital skills.

Together, Mozilla, MacArthur Foundation and other key stakeholders plan to increase Hive participation at the individual, city, and global level by activating educators and empowering them with the tools, community, culture, and practice to re-imagine learning in the cities in which they live.

We have a responsibility to optimize how youth learn.

The inspiration and design of the Hive model springs from a fidelity to connected learning, an emergent educational theory that recognizes the need for a new approach to learning. It is defined by its core values, learning, and design principles. We also know that the technology and the culture of the web is critical to learning in a connected world—helping all young people become citizens of the web is an issue of justice and equity. Our experiences, whether digital or analog, are informed by the web. The web is so integrated into our collective daily lives, we believe that web literacy is essential for youth and the adults who interact with them to be positioned for success in our ever changing world.

We need a Global Hive to spread tools and practices from existing Hives and to help people who want to start Hives in new cities.

Through the work we have done over the past two and a half years with Hive NYC, and more recently with Hive Chicago, Hive Pittsburgh, and Hive Toronto, we have learned:

• That there exists a great appetite to iterate proactively on the pedagogies and principles that best prepare people for a rapidly changing world

• That too often innovative work and people sit inside silos with little chance to connect their work to others

• That we need more collaborators, co-designers, and constituents to advance our collective goals

• That there is a growing sophistication of purpose in the types of people, organizations, and communities who gravitate to Hive

• The strength of a unifying brand and identity, which is open and available to adopt, adapt, and replicate in order to expand a distributed network

Hive is the city-based strategy within Mozilla’s Webmaker initiative.

Mozilla will house, operate, and co-fund Hive Global to function as a “big tent” for educators and organizations with diverse approaches to come together around connected learning and web literacy. Having a local and grassroots approach with Hive allows us to build momentum for and global adoption of the philosophy, tools, and strategies of connected learning.

As steward of the Global Hive network, Mozilla will construct and convene a governance structure, create materials, offer badges, run events, provide web platforms, and collect metrics that support the work of local Hive leaders.

Our roadmap for Hive Global in 2014

In the coming months, we will be working to identify and document best practices from existing Hive Learning Networks that can be shared with others globally. We’ll share more details and resources for those interested in exploring what a Hive might look like in their city.

Our immediate priorities are to:

• Fully integrate the Hive Global plan, situated within Mozilla’s Webmaker initiative.

• Expand the pipeline of new cities interested in Hive.

• Build core materials and systems that make it easier and faster for people interested in Hive to get involved.

In my next post, I will share thoughts on a tiered engagement model that outlines what contribution to Hive looks like, and how those interested in activating local communities around this model might start on that path.

We’re extremely excited about the progress we’ve made in the past two years, and in the rising interest we’ve seen and heard from people and organizations around the world who have an affinity to our work. In many ways, we’re working to meet the demands of the opportunity to share and spread the Hive model, and so we’d love to hear your feedback or comments on these initial plans–please feel free to add them below or to email me directly.