TLDR = quick summary of what’s up with Mozilla Webmaker this week, focused on mentors and builders.

• Notes from Tuesday’s community call
  
• Join the next one
  
• stay in touch | past updates
  

New explainer video: creating an open “Web Literacy Standard”

• Learn more. All the web literacy standard links you need are at mzl.la/weblit
• Check our new explainer video. in Popcorn or You Tube.
• Join the next Web Literacy Standard community call. On Thursday, March 7.
• Share your opinion: are these the right pillars for a web literacy framework? “Exploring, Creating, Connecting, Protecting.”

Hive Athens: new webmaking networks keep popping

It started with Hive New York and Chicago, and now its popping up in London, Toronto, Pittsburgh and now Athens, Greece. The first-ever “Hive Athens” drew 100+ kids to 9 different activity stations near the Technopolis for webmaking, massive multi-player thumb wrestling, and (of course) the Harlem Shake. It was also a chance to work with ReMo Training Days to to grow webmaking communities mentor other makers and educators to run their own webmaking events.

Get involved:

• Join the conversation. Through #hiveathens, #webmaker or #remotrainingdays
• Great Hive Athens photos. What does a Hive Pop-Up event look like?
• Host a Hive Pop-Up event in your city. Bring local groups together to play together and start a new network.
• Slide deck. Overall goals and concept.
• Notes. from ReMo Training days (etherpad)

New Webmaker projects: “GIFs Gone Wild” and “Top Five“

“GIFs gone wild.” Instantly combine animated GIFs with music or sound. Mash up animated GIFs with whatever audio you choose to create strange new mutations. Like…

• …pushing a laughing techno baby…
• or a banjo-playing chameleon.

TOP 5. Instantly make your own moving “top five” lists. Use Popcorn to create your own multimedia best-of list. Everybody’s got an opinion — but you’re the expert. Top 5 video games, action movies, places to go on a first date, etc…

Save the date: Mozilla Festival = Oct 25-27, 2013

In London, UK. That’s right! We’re going to be back at Ravensbourne for another amazing mix of making and learning mayhem. Save the date now! More soon.

What’s the best thing you saw on the web this week?

Let us know here. And check out this week’s Webmaker Hotlist.

Planet Webmaker round-up…

• Teen Tech Bash. Teens in the Bronx design apps, games and play with Webmaker tools. Hive NYC member Exposure Camp recaps their latest monthly all-nighters.
• Popcorn production wins Canadian Oscar. One Millionth Tower, the NFB’s Popcorn Project that premiered at the 2011 Mozilla Festival, just won a Canadian Screen Award — Canada’s version of the Oscars.
• Hack to the Future. New webmaking project from MOUSE using the X-Ray Goggles
• New UK digital innovation contest for badges. With Technology Strategy Board and Nesta in the UK.

TLDR = your summary of what’s happening with Mozilla Webmaker this week, focused on mentors and builders — the community making Webmaker

• Notes from the last Webmaker community call
  
• Join the next one
• stay in touch | check out past updates like this one

Make your own webby Valentine

These awesome new Webmaker projects make it fun and easy:

• Show some love — internet style. Make a personalized Valentine’s music video!
• I <3 you like… Remix images in this super cute Popcorn Maker project.
  
• I *LIKE* you, like you.  Got a secret crush? Send ‘em this endearingly geeky classroom note.

Finalized Webmaker 2013 plans

We gathered your feedback. We iterated. We shipped. Here are the crystalized plans and roadmaps:

• 2013 status update presentation. Our presentation from the last Mozilla All Hands meeting.
  
• High level vision, context and goals. Our 2013 plans and goals wiki.
  
• Roadmaps for…
  • Webmaker Tools and Content
  • Badges
  • Mentor Community

Pushing Thimble’s envelope

We’re seeing some great new projects that set new bars for what’s possible with Thimble. The new Mozilla Bhopal page above, created by Komal, a Mozilla Rep from India, provides a great template for others to remix and re-purpose.

Malcolm did something similar, building off a template Jess presented in last week’s Webmaker call. Click on his “Webmaker Friends” to link through to his daughters’ pages.

• Try Thimble yourself now
• Remix Komal’s project
• Remix Malcolm’s project

Creating a new “Web Literacy Standard” for the world

How can we create a global standard for web literacy together? That was the question mentors, instructors and educators gathered last week to answer in the first-ever Mozilla Web Literacy standard online gathering.

• Context and goals
  
• Slides | Audio | Notes
• Introduce yourself. Great thread on the Webmaker mailing list. Connect with others working on web literacy around the world.

Design new Mozilla WebDev badges

• Today is the last day to submit designs for Webdev badges. Post your designs on Flickr using the “webdevbadges” tag.
• Check out designs submitted so far

Planet Webmaker round-up:

• Six seconds is the new 140 characters. Trend analysis on how mobile and short bursts of rich media are coming together in products like Twitter’s new “Vine.”

• Sequencing Web Media. Popcorn Maker as video editor. Weaving multiple video or audio clips into a single experience.

• Localizing Thimble. How to do it. What’s next.

• Webmaker Mentors in 2013. How the maker movement and learning movement are coming together, and what it means for Webmaker this year.

• Webmaker Badges Roadmap. Web literacy badges + the Open Badge Infrastructure and wider badge ecosystem.

• Report-back from a “Future of Badges” meeting with advisors, thinkers and luminaries.
• Webmaking 101: picking the right format for your image. gifs versus pngs versus jpegs, oh my!

TLDR = your summary of what’s happening with Mozilla Webmaker this week, focused on mentors and builders — aka, “the community making Webmaker”

• Recording of the Jan 29 Webmaker community call — now Popcorn-ized!
• Join next week’s call
• stay in touch  |  past updates 
  

Webmaker Badges 2013 roadmap

How do we make webmaker badges more valuable, usable and real in 2013? Erin Knight’s presentation lays out the draft roadmap your feedback. TLDR version:

1. Build the web literacy standard. Create a community around it, generate accountability and support.
2. Launch more badges. Covering a wider range of skills and types. Within Webmaker and other Mozilla badges — for Engagement, IT, Mozillians, etc.
3. Provide users with tools for goal-setting, learning discovery and mentorship.
4. Finalize assessment mechanisms and pathways.

• Watch Erin’s presentation (You Tube slidecast)
  
• Check out the Webmaker badges 2013 roadmap slides (PDF)
• Etherpad version

As a mentor, I want my activities with webmakers to allow [learners] to earn badges.  I need a process that allows me to “check-out” some badges on the promise of making them available when my students/webmakers accomplish educational milestones.
–feedback from the Jan 29 community call

HOW TO design digital badges

Jess Klein’s top 5 pieces of advice on design for badge systems:

1. Get to know your end-user. Think through your user persona and user flows.
2. Identity. How will your badges communicate or enhance an end-user’s identity?
3. Design. 90% of the badge system design is not visual. Think through all the touch-points for your badges and ask: “are they meaningful experiences?”
4. User testing. How can you engage your community in user testing and analysis?
5. Metrics and dashboard data. How are your end users valuing success, learning and skill acquisition?

More on badges:

• How to implement badges in the classroom. Chicago’s Karen Jeffrey has a great take on approaches to badge system design for educators.
• Badges, Gaming and Digital Media. David Truss’s post on adding a badge system using Open Badges for the Digital Literacy course he teaches.

When a student gives themselves a badge, it must link to the task or assignment or evidence. Students can do this without teacher approval, in fact, it is expected that they progress through the course by choosing their own evidence.

Current + projected growth for our social media channels

2013 social media strategy: makers, mentors and supporters

Webmaker’s 2013 social media plan. How do we make effective use of social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to create more webmakers and mentors? What do the 2012 metrics tell us? How is our channel strategy changing to focus and segment these core audiences? Rebeccah Mullen breaks it down.

• Watch Rebeccah’s presentation (You Tube slidecast)
• Check out her slides (PDF)
• Slide text (etherpad)

OpenNews: Building a Community of Fellows

Dan Sinker’s post on on-boarding this year’s new OpenNews fellows in Boston, need-finding interviews at the Boston Globe, and human-centered design.

We focus a lot on community here at OpenNews—the big, sprawling, amazing community that creates the code that’s transforming journalism every day.

Global Game Jam: more than 300 web-based games created in one weekend

Last weekend, Mozilla’s Game On competition participated in a Global Game Jam,  sponsoring events in LA, Toronto, Warsaw, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Boston. The challenge: make a game that runs in the browser, without any plug-ins. The result: 300 (and counting) LOVE-ly games created!

• Play the games here
• Submit your game to the Game On competition
• More context on the growth game jams. Plus an inspiring keynote for game makers.

Help build a new Webmaker Mentor FAQ

This wiki is the start of a larger FAQ we’re building to address common questions. We need your help to build it out! Please add questions you’ve heard from folks interested in participating in Webmaker here.