Monthly Archives: May 2012

Mozilla Webmaker launch makes headlines: press round-up (updated)

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Last week, we proudly launched Mozilla Webmaker to the world. Here’s a round-up of reaction from the press:

Wired Webmonkey

Mozilla Aims to Build a Better Web With ‘Webmakers’ Project

Mozilla has kicked off a new effort to do something that’s very near and dear to Webmonkey’s heart — helping people create cool stuff on the web. Mozilla Webmaker, as the new initiative is known, wants to create “a new generation of webmakers, and a more web literate world.”

Boing Boing

Mozilla Webmaker: teaching people to make the Web

Mozilla’s new Webmaker project is a global initiative to “move people from using the Web to making the Web.” They’re running a series of events, including an upcoming Summer Code Party with interactive and recorded sessions on making stuff (I’ll be doing one of these).  –Cory Doctorow

PC World

Learn DIY Web Skills Through Mozilla’s New ‘Webmaker’ Effort

Mozilla announced a new effort aimed at helping everyday users of the Web become more proficient at developing and helping to create it…. The new Mozilla Webmaker site will launch officially on June 6. When it does, I’m thinking it could be just as good a resource for small business users as it promises to be for individuals.

Lifehacker

Mozilla Webmaker Aims to Teach You to Code and Change You from Web Consumer to Creator

While we’ve seen plenty of other ways to teach yourself to code, and even created our own series of lessons to help, this is the first collective learning initiative we’ve seen. You can certainly teach yourself from the privacy of your own home, but if you learn better with others you should definitely check this out.

 GigaOm

 Meet Webmaker: Mozilla Launches “Summer Code” Web Love-in

Mozilla has long been a defender of a free and open web, and now the company has launched Mozilla Webmaker, which is aimed at taking ordinary web users and giving them development chops that can help them create new types of online “experiences.”…Mozilla will be reaching out to schools, summer camps and other organizations to participate in Webmaker, and the company is talking about a more “web literate planet.” That can’t be a bad thing.

 

 CNET

Mozilla pushes for stronger ‘maker’ philosophy on Web

While the initiative stands to raise the visibility and importance of coding among the general public from a well-known non-profit already established in the field, it also comes just as the company plans to begin unveiling massive challenges to nearly every major player on the Web today with its Boot to Gecko phones, Persona login system, and Mozilla Marketplace for Web apps.

WebProNews

Mozilla Reveals its ‘Webmaker’ Education Initiative

To kickstart the program, Mozilla is campaigning for what it calls the Summer code Party. Mozilla is encouraging volunteers to host free local Webmaker events and teach-ins all over the world, to help those interested learn how to code for the web. Mozilla has provided event kits and starter projects to make it easy.

More ongoing press coverage tracked here.

CoderDojo teams up with Mozilla for “Summer Code Party”

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CoderDojo is coming to the party. Are you?

As we mentioned with Tuesday’s launch of Mozilla Webmaker, Mozilla is inviting people and partners around the world to teach and learn the web through our Summer Code Party.

One of those partners is CoderDojo, a growing international movement to create “code clubs” for youth around the world. CoderDojo founder James Whelton joined our Webmaker community call to tell us what they’re bringing to the big Summer Code Party — and why teaching youth tech matters.

What’s Coder Dojo all about?

CoderDojo is a movement of free coding clubs for young people. Begun only eleven months ago in Ireland, they now boast over 70 Dojos worldwide. Initially conceived as a “fight club with keyboards,” organizers discovered quickly that their events were booking up “faster than Ireland’s most popular boy band concerts” and attracting almost as many girls as boys.

James describes it as”the boys and girls scouts of coding.” Youth learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more. By matching web developers with enthusiastic novices aged 7-18, Coder Dojo mentors help kids develop problem solving skills, show off their work, and gain access to a supportive online network.

Why is Coder Dojo joining the Summer Code Party?

“It’s really important that the kids get exposed to contemporary companies and technologies,” James said.  “And we want to broaden our global network.”

What do they have planned?

  • A series of upcoming Code Jams
  • National and international tournaments
  • A belting and badging tie-in. Based upon achieving mastery of various skills and webmaker projects.

Get involved

 

Introducing “Mozilla Webmaker:” helping the world make the web

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Today, we’re proud to launch “Mozilla Webmaker,” a new program to help people everywhere make, learn and play using the open building blocks 
of the web.

The goal: help millions of people move from using the web to making the web. With new tools to use, projects to create, and events to join, we want to help the world increase their understanding of the web and take greater control of their online lives.

And we’d like you to join us.

 

Building a generation of webmakers

Concretely, Mozilla Webmaker will offer:

  • 1) Tools. Authoring tools and software, designed and built with our community. From supercharging web video with Popcorn, to remixing with Hackasaurus, to making your own web pages with Thimble.
  • 2) Projects. Practical starter projects, how-tos and recipes, designed to help people at all levels make something amazing with the web. From tweaking your blog template to building apps that change the world.
  • 3) Community. Bringing people with diverse skills and backgrounds together. Teachers, filmmakers, journalists, youth. From web ninjas to newbies. All making and learning together at events, meet-ups and hack jams everywhere.

A global invitation to make and learn this summer

We’re kicking off Mozilla Webmaker with something special: a massive summer learning campaign. It’s called the Summer Code Party, will run all summer long, and kicks off June 23.

We’re inviting everyone to join or volunteer at free local events and teach-ins around the world. With new Webmaker tools, event kits and starter projects designed to make it easy, social and fun. We’ll end with a big wrap-up September 23.

We’re not doing this alone. We want to build a big tent for everyone who shares our goal of a more web literate planet. Amazing partners are joining the party, from Tumblr, Creative Commons and Code for America to SoundCloud, the San Francisco Public Library, the London Zoo, and dozens of others. Plus special events with Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow, OK GO’s Damian Kulash, and more.

What types of programs can participate? Summer camps, day camps, summer schools, public libraries, recreation centers, neighborhood groups, your kitchen table — anyone with a willingness to make, learn and engage using the open building blocks of the web.

Creating a web literate planet

Mozilla’s Executive Director, Mark Surman, says Webmaker is the product of Mozilla’s growing commitment to learning, and the culmination of experiments it began with the Mozilla Drumbeat project.

“The web is becoming the world’s second language, and a vital 21st century skill — as important as reading, writing and arithmetic,” says Surman. “It’s crucial that we give people the skills they need to understand, shape and actively participate in that world, instead of just passively consuming it. That maker spirit and open ethos is vital to Mozilla, our partners, and the web.”

The new Mozilla Webmaker web site launches June 6. In the mean time, check out the new Summer Code Party site to find an event near you, sign up for updates, and get a sneak peek at Mozilla Webmaker tools and projects.

Get involved:

Get excited and make things: beta test these new Mozilla Webmaker projects

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The best way to learn something is by making something. So as part of Mozilla’s campaign to help the world learn coding and webmaking this summer, we created these new Mozilla Webmaker projects. Their mission: help anyone (especially youth) make something amazing on the web fast.

Help test them out?

Can you take a few minutes to beta test the projects below? Are they easy to use? Helpful for learning? Fun? Flammable?

What’s the idea?

It’s all part of the Mozilla Summer Code Party. Blast off is June 23, with local events and teach-ins running around the world all summer long.

Mozilla will provide curriculum and fun starter projects like these. Tools anyone can use to make and learn together, just about anywhere. At local partner events, Mozilla spaces, libraries, or gathered around their own kitchen table.

Try ‘em out now. Kick the tires on these beta webmaker projects below and let us know what you think:

Make your own meme

Got what it takes to go viral and become internet famous? Prove it. This project lets you use your HTML and CSS swagger to create your own web page — featuring a meme to conquer all internet memes. Let your inner serious cat or Ryan Gosling “hey girl” shine.

–> G O <–

Hack a TV commercial

Remix cheesy TV commercials. Add your own voice, insert pop-ups, links and commentary to web video. Hack pop culture with the tasty new Mozilla Popcorn tool.

–> G O <–

Go back in time to make these ugly ’90s web pages not suck. Everyone has an embarrassing moment. For the web it was the 1990s, when websites were boxy, ugly and wore flannel. Wrangle your HTML and CSS style powers to change the content, colors and layout to drag these pages out of the grungy past.

–> G O <–

Hack your way through the web arcade

Say o hai to the “web arcade,” a collection of hackable mini-games that test your webmaking prowess. In this first mission, use HTML to fix a broken map of the arcade, unlocking new missions and exploring brave new webby worlds.

–> G O <–

Speak your mind

Got something to shout about? A rant, cause, passion project or block party you want the world to know about? Shout it from the rooftops by making your own web page in minutes, using this handy remixable template. Then share it via email, Twitter, Facebook or URL. Easy! </rant>

–> G O <–

Create your own “Inanimate Alice” episode

Create transmedia mayhem. Use the popular “Inanimate Alice” interactive novel and Hackasaurus to make your own storylines, characters and mashups, remixing the web as you go.

–> G O <–

Create your own awesome-looking “how-to” page. Use your newfound HTML, CSS and Popcorn wisdom to create the world’s greatest web page tutorial. What do you want to make today?

–> G O <–

Even more webmaker projects are on the way:

  • How to make your own animated GIF
  • How to tweak your Tumblr theme with CSS
  • Make your own avatar
  • + lots more interest-based projects from Hive, more advanced HTML and CSS projects, more from the NESTA event and more…

Sneak peek: new Mozilla Webpage Maker

It’s webmaking made ridiculously simple. The new Mozilla Webpage Maker tool will help you make your own fully real web page in about 8 seconds flat. All through a simple two-pane editor that makes the basics of HTML dead easy to learn. Test out the prototype here.

Get involved with Webmaker Projects

Get involved with Mozilla’s Summer Code Party