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Intrepid news hackers from the the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews event in Buenos Aires last week

Planet Webmaker: weekly update for April 17, 2012

• Etherpad notes from the April 15 Mozilla Webmaker call
• Audio and video recording
• Join next week’s call
• Past updates like this one
• Dashboard. Posts, press, handy links.

“Augmenting Amazonia:” sneak peek at Mark Boas’ new interactive video experiment

This sneak peek interactive video demo uses Mozilla Popcorn to pull interactive notes and context into a beautiful upcoming documentary about the Amazon. It allows viewers to interact with the video and go deeper into the content in whole new ways, including automatically tweet out specific points on the time code for specific moments you want to share.

We have an opportunity to create unique mechanisms that allow deeper interaction, while at the same time sharing a similar experience. –Mark Boas, Knight-Mozilla News Fellow

One neat trick: the pop-up boxes and links that appear alongside the video are stored directly in a simple Google doc, which makes writing, editing and updating them dead easy.

The project uses Popcorn.js and the new IE8 shim + jPlayer. It will eventually be embedded in the Al Jazeera English web site, but can also be popped out and added to tablet, mobile device or your TV / home-screen. Mark says this is all a primer for a larger project: a new web app to view Al Jazeera English documentaries.

Get involved:

• Check out the latest work-in-progress demo version of “Amazonia”
• Watch Mark present it in the Mozilla Webmaker call
• Code will be posted to OpenNews Git Hub soon. Libraries used include jQuery, jPlayer, grab.js, Popcorn.js, Tabletop.js and add2home.js.
• In the mean time, get in touch with Mark to get involved.
• Apply to become a 2012-2013 Knight Mozilla News Fellow

What’s the metric that matters most for the Mozilla Webmaker project?

In a nutshell: contribution. How should the Mozilla Webmaker project track and measure success? What are the key metrics? Mark Surman and Ryan Merkley prepared this presentation for Mozilla’s Board of Directors last week. The major message: contribution –  in-depth participation from people helping to build a generation of webmakers alongside us — will be the major metric for success.

• Mozilla Webmakers Metrics: slide presentation (PDF)
• Watch and listen to Ryan’s presentationfrom the last Mozilla Webmaker call (You Tube)

The new Mozilla Webmaker web site: projects, tools and events for webmakers

Projects | Tools | Events. The upcoming Mozilla Webmaker web site will focus on these three core areas: projects, tools and events for webmakers.

What do we mean by “projects?” We mean recipe cards, how to’s and starter projects for making something amazing. From making your own pop-up video in about five minutes, to designing digital learning badges for NASA, to hacking the future of news documentaries with ninjas like Mark Boas, to tweaking your Tumblr template — while learning a bit of HTML and CSS in the process.

Bite-sized starter projects vs. programs. Individual Mozilla Webmaker programs and standalone web sites will continue to be accessible through a single click from a front-page carousel. But the emphasis of the new projects section will be pulling bite-sized opportunities to make, build or contribute something from across these various silos. Like “MakeProjects.com” for webmakers.

We’d been struggling around what to call the “projects” section. Recipes? Activities? Missions? Learning challenges? Tutorials? How Tos? But when you look at what other sites call this stuff — whether Popular Mechanics or Make Magazine or Little Bits — they all use the same simple telegraphic word: “projects.”

Get involved

• Check out the presentation slides (PDF)
• Listen to audio of Matt’s presentation (You Tube audio only)
• Designer Chris Appleton’s design assets

Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Hackathon in Buenos Aires

Hackers in Buenos Aires from the OpenNews Hackathon. Mozilla partnered with Mozilla Hispano, the Buenos Aires Hacks/Hackers group and Blue Via for a day-long event on Friday, April 20, at the NH City & Tower Hotel in the heart of the city. The event featured short talks about HTML5 and friends, Javascript APIs, the Add-ons SDK, developer tools, and our newest offering: Apps and Persona.

Hacking on Mozilla Collusion at the Wall Street Journal Transparency Weekend

Is your smart phone leaking? That’s the question this new “MobileScope” mobile app helps you answer, which won WSJ’s Transparency Weekend “Ready for Primetime” award. There was also lots of exciting new developments on the Mozilla Collusion front — we’ll get a more detailed report back from Gunner in Tuesday’s call.

• Coders Gather for the Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend
• Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend: Day 2
• Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend: Day 3

Next week: make and build with us

• Join the Mozilla Web Maker Community Call. Open to all. Make, learn, share.
  
• Tuesdays 8am PST / 11am EST / 4pm GMT
• Call-in details and agenda: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webmakers/Community_Calls

Tascasaurus: teaching teachers in New York last week

Mozilla Webmaker weekly update for April 5, 2012

• Complete notes from the April 03 Mozilla Webmaker call
• Recording of the call (Apologies for Flash — we’re working on it!)
• Join next week’s call. Every Tuesday at 8am PT.
• Summaries of past calls. Past updates like this one.
• Handy dashboard. All our blog posts, press and other useful stuff.

Design for America: “Using digital badges to inspire a generation of creative activists”

Each week, lively guest speakers kick off our Mozilla Webmaker community calls.

“Look locally, create fervently, and act fearlessly to tackle local and social challenges.”

Design for America’s mission: create a generation of creative activists who can use design thinking to tackle social challenges. As winners of the recent “Badges for Learning Competition” hosted by the MacArthur Foundation and Mozilla, they’re using Mozilla’s Open Badges software to create digital badges that:

• Help them scale up. Encoding and spreading community knowledge to new chapters opening up across the country.
• Teach something about the design thinking process. Just looking at their badge pathway teaches you something about design — from scoping to prototyping to implementing.
• Reward hard and soft skills. Including peer-2-peer collaboration, teamwork and other 21st century skills.

Design for America's proposed badge pathway: recognizing hard and soft skills

Learn more:

• Watch Design for America’s slide presentation and discussion
• Download a PDF version of their slides
• Take a look at their submission to the “Badges for Learning” competition
• Press: “Graduate Students Win Digital Media Learning Competition“
• Take a look at Mozilla’s new Open Badges web site — and earn your first badge

Mozilla Open Badges: launching Beta next week

Learning today happens online and everywhere, not just in the classroom.  Mozilla’s Open Badges helps people get recognition for those skills and achievements, through a shared infrastructure that’s free and open to all.

Next week, the Open Badges infrastructure is launching a new Beta version. What’s new and improved?

• Improved badge issuer API.  Including an easy-to-implement javascript widget.
• Improved “Badge Backpack” UI. Create groups of badges simply by dragging and dropping, tool tip guides, and more.
• New privacy controls
• Integration with Persona / BrowserID (!)
• Better documentation

Mozilla Persona / BrowserID integration FTW!

This release should be of particular interest to developers. Learn more and get involved:

• Check out the Open Badges web site.
• Git Hub links for:
• Badge issuers
• Badge Backpack
• Displayer API
• Have a look at other organization working on implementing their own badges systems using Mozilla Open Badges. (Includes NASA, 4H, Disney-Pixar, Intel and many many others.)

Mozilla Popcorn Learning Lab in London: cool new demos

Check out these cool Mozilla Popcorn demos made at the recent Popcorn Learning Lab in London:

Stephen Johnson explored the potential of using Popcorn at British Telecom. He made a custom Popcorn.js plugin that pulls still  frames from videos to create a beautiful dynamic collage.

Lawrence Job from Young Rewired State paired up with Chris Hutchinson (winner of  the Guardian’s Student Media Awards “Website Of The Year”). Together they created a commenting system that uses websockets to allow multiple people to create comments using Popcorn.

Kat from the Salvation Army explored the use of Mozilla Popcorn for non-profits by augmenting a video using the Pop Up Video template — including a link to the Salvation Army’s donations page.

There’s plenty more on the London Learning Lab here.

Mozilla’s Summer Campaign: new wiki web site

This summer, Mozilla is throwing a global “code party.” And of course — you’re invited.

The goal: teach people around the world the basics of coding and webmaking. Through big and small events, open learning tools and resources, and local partners and communities around the world.

We’re working out communications strategy and planning, including a new wiki web site that tries to answer the basics and get people involved.

• Check out the new wiki website and let us know how you’d improve it. (As comments here or in Tuesday’s Mozilla Webmaker community call.)
• Check out the “Partners” page in particular. Does this spell it out well enough for partners orgs and communities?
• Sign up here for updates.

Mozilla’s Summer Code Party

• What’s it all about?
• When? What’s the calendar of events?
• How can I get involved?
• Partner Kit
• FAQ
• Roadmap and planning

Tascasaurus: Training leaders to teach digital literacy to youth

Empowering New York teachers to teach the web. Tascasaurus is a collaborative, STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math)-driven Mozilla Hackasaurus jam and partnership between Hive NYC, MOUSE and The After School Corporation (TASC). The goal:

• Use technology to increase digital literacy and interest in STEM for underrepresented youth
• Prepare community educators to deliver technology-enabled, student-driven learning activities
• Create a turnkey model that can be quickly disseminated among other after- school networks

 Read all about it and get involved here.

Join next week’s Mozilla Webmaker call: every Tuesday at 8 am PST

All are welcome. Help build Mozilla Webmaker projects with our global community:

 

Mozilla Webmaker weekly update for Mar 22, 2012

• Complete notes from the Mar 20 Mozilla Webmaker call
• Audio recording of the call
• Join next week’s call. What are you working on? What do you want to talk about?
• Past updates.

Guest speaker: Mimi Ito on connected learning and webmaking

Each week in our Webmaker Community calls, we’re inviting guest speakers to blow our minds. This week it was Mimi Ito, researcher, author, and one of the world’s leading thinkers in how youth learn and express themselves through technology. Mimi talked about “connected learning” as a 21st model for education, and how it might inform some of Mozilla’s own work in education and webmaking.

• Check out the new Connected Learning web site
• Listen to the audio recording of Mimi’s presentation (from 0:58 to 23:00)
• What other guest speakers should we invite? Add your ideas here.

New video series: meet the webmakers

“We are going to get to develop new technology that’s never been seen before.”

As we gear up for the launch of our new brand and web site, we’re working with the good folks at Thought Bubble — the animators behind “the Mozilla Story” — to produce a series of short videos starring the four major communities we serve:

• youth
• journalists
• film-makers
• educators

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the video they shot with youth last week in the Mozilla Toronto office.

Girls Learning code: what did we learn? How do we scale up?

Last week we told you about the “Girls Learning Code” camp in the Mozilla Toronto office. Here’s a report-back on what they made and what we learned from the process. There’s huge interest in bringing the camp back this summer — stay tuned for more. In the mean time, here’s some helpful resources:

• Slide presentation. Full of photos, useful resources and definitions, and documentation of what the girls made.
• Girls Learning Code web site.
• Girls Learning Code camp schedule. The curriculum and activities for the five-day arc.
• Questions and answers about challenges, costs, promoting the event, and more.

Each team made their own web site using Mozilla Hackasaurus and others tools:

Team Action Script: Second Chance

Team C Sharp: Leave Animals Alone (L.A.A.)

Team Java: Sexual Rights Association

Team Onyx: MIVIJ International

Team Opal: Community Development

 Etherpad + Mozilla Popcorn = Etherpop

What if you could edit and annotate video as easily as editing text in an etherpad? Kate Hudson, creator of the awesome Popcorn Shakespeare demo, is exploring how to do just that with her new “EtherPop” demo. Paste in any video URL and add annotations and notes using Etherpad. Several people can collaborate simultaneously, too. Cool huh?

Kate is coming on board as an intern to work at Mozilla this summer — beginning April 1. So look for more great Popcorn work to come.

• Try Etherpop yourself now.
• See it in action: Kate’s video demo showing what a finished Etherpop page looks like
• Check out how she made it. Using stuff like the Etherpad Lite API, Zero Clipboard, and more.

Mozilla Hackasaurus learning challenges + new Mozilla Badges

These new challenges and quests are designed to:

• Help learners understand the basics of HTML using the Hackasaurus X-Ray Goggles
• Help instructors teach students the basics of webmaking
• Earn Mozilla badges doing it

They’re all in early stages and seeking feedback. Let Laura know what you think.

Hackasaurus in action: Chicago

This video from Chicago’s Malcolm Williams at a mini hack-jam is a great example of Hackasaurus in action. Malcolm is a gamifcation expert and has an encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes. We especially like how he:

• Uses a simple metaphor to explain how the Goggles work.
• Adds drama and a simple superhero flair to the experience.
• Shows off his own interest-driven hack.

Mozilla Learning Group: this is how we do

We’re constantly trying to get better at publicly roadmapping our work.  Here’s a post and wiki from Mozilla’s Erin Knight on…

• How the Learning Group rocked every goal set for Q1 and is aiming high for Q2.
• The road ahead, including the Summer Campaign, Event Kit launch, and Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Pilot.

What should every techie know about education?

• Take this quiz on what ed-tech entrepreneurs and engineers should be doing
• A Mozilla-Made “Scratch for HTML5″:  Thoughts So Far — Ed Tech blogger Audrey Watters on teaching HTML5 to the world
• What digital badge developers should know about learning assessment

The session on digital badges at last week's DML Conference in San Fran was filled to capacity. So we hacked our own version in the hallway. #OccupyBadges

Mozilla Webmaker weekly update for Mar 8, 2012

• Complete notes from the Mar 6, 2012 Mozilla Webmaker call
• Audio recording of the Mar 6 call
• Join next week’s call

Collusion kicks butt

The launch of  Collusion made headlines around the world. The Ford Foundation is supporting Mozilla to help further develop the add-on and build large-scale education programs around online privacy and tracking.

• Install the Collusion add-on.
• See what the press is saying about it. From Mashable and PC World to Business Week, Fast Company and The Atlantic.
• Read the TED Talks blog post.

DML Badges for Learning Competition winners announced

A major milestone for the Open Badges project. Winners ranged from NASA, the U.S. Department of Education and the Girl Scouts of America to Intel, Disney-Pixar and Motorola. In the months ahead, all of them will build digital badge systems using Mozilla’s Open Badges Infrastructure.

• Read the blog post about the competition winners and what it all means.
• Check out the brand new Mozilla OpenBadges.org web site — and earn your first badge.
• The team is growing. Meet the new Open Badges product manager, Chris McAvoy! @chmcavoy
• The project roadmap is moving to Pivotal Tracker. Track milestones and progress there.

The Big Summer Webmaking Campaign

As Mark put it: “this is going to be *the* major galvanizing force for everything we do between now and the Mozilla Festival in November.” These summer maker events will include hack jams in many Mozilla Spaces, with informal learning and remixing in small peer groups.

• Read Ben Simon’s post on creating a giant “Kitchen Table Campaign“
• Read Michelle Thorne’s post on a “Webmaking Day of Action“
• Read Michelle Lesvesque’s post on the recent “Event Kit” sprint

Event Kit Sprint: making it easy to host your own event

How do we enable self-organized webmaker events that can scale up and take over the world? The events team did a massive sprint on this in San Francisco last week. Early results:

• The “mullet” events strategy: tidy in the front, messy in the back.
• Storytelling through events
• Go-to-market plan
• Final plan out and more detailed notes

Early web site mockups:

• Events frontpage
• Event search page

Mozilla Popcorn app releases version 0.2: “Ghostbusters”

The goal: make it easier for non-developers to tap the magic of Mozilla Popcorn through a simple GUI interface. The app just released version 0.2, codenamed “Ghostbusters.” (Complete with a Staypuft Marshmallow Man birthday cake.) What’s new and improved?

• stronger software foundations
• new UI
• droppable regions
• accounts/saving

New releases will drop every month. “Ghostbusters” was all about hunting bugs — next month’s 0.3 release, “The Breakfast Club,” is all about growing up.

• Take the Mozilla Popcorn app for a test drive
• Read Ben Moskowitz’s post for more on what’s new in 0.2 — and what’s next

SXSW: What is Mozilla up to?

SXSW starts Friday. Lots of Mozilla projects and events going on — look for a separate blog post on that soon. In the mean time, here’s an etherpad with rough notes on what we’re all up to. Please add if we’ve missed something.

Working open… every week

I’m excited by how our Mozilla Webmaker calls are evolving. Most meetings tend to suck. This one increasingly doesn’t, in large part because we’re committed to sprinting together in etherpad instead of just passively listening to others talk. As our team grows rapidly, we have the dual necessity of both increasing participation and co-ordinating effort, to avoid left-hand vs. right-hand issues. We’ve got a ways to go, but having a look at the etherpad each week provides a decent (albeit blurry) snapshot of what the heck is up.

Notes and audio recording from the Feb 7 call
This post provides a quick summary of what we’re working on right now, as outlined in today’s call.

• Complete notes from the Feb 7 call
• Audio recording of today’s call (MP3) (link fixed)
• Mozilla Webmaker calls wiki. For info on future calls, links to agendas, etc.

What’s on our radar this week?

Mozilla Popcorn: Vision & Roadmap

Got a sneak preview at some new slides and roadmap for Mozilla Popcorn today. Outstanding presentation from Ben Moskowtiz, Brett Gaylor and the Popcorn team. Not yet ready for wide sharing — look for a blog post and tweets on this soon.

Mozilla Learning Team Roadmap

What specific skills do we need to teach to create a generation of webmakers? How do we get there?

• Blog post on Mozilla Learning Roadmap from Erin Knight.
• Roadmap. With goals broken down by quarter

Re-designing the OpenBadges.org site

Mozilla’s Open Badges project is going to get a more robust online home. Blog post and preliminary wireframes are here.

Hive Toronto:  Hackjam for youth

Happening in the Mozilla Toronto office February 18th, from 1 pm – 4:30 pm. Heather Payne is working with others to hone the event plan. Registration is here. 54 people already registered so far (24 kids, 16 parents, 14 volunteers). Aiming for 60-75 kids to register total.

Data Journalism Handbook: version 1.0 coming soon

The Data Journalism Handbook was born at November’s Mozilla Festival in London. They’re aiming to have a version 1.0 done by the end of February. Learn more and get involved here. Or re-tweet something like this to help spread the word:

Final call for contributions for the Data Journalism Handbook v 0.1 ow.ly/8THez . Help to finish it by end of Feb! #ddjbook #ddj

How do we make it easier for webmakers to host their own events?

Ben Simon and Michelle Thorne have outlined thinking and proposals in a pair of blog posts. Are these the right features? Are we missing any?

• Infrastructure for self-organizing
• Feature Requests for Webmakers
  

  

Awesome blog post and visual storytelling on Collusion

Who’s watching the watchers? Don’t miss this inspired post and comic-style explanation of  Collusion.

Shout out to Pat Imlay and Open Attribute

Shout Out to Pat Lockley who continues to update the Open Attribute plugins. It’s attribution made ridiculously simple. Updated plugins for Firefox, Chrome, WordPress, Drupal, Opera.