#web literacy

Are we preparing students for the web in the wild? An analysis of features of websites for children. Journal of Literacy & Technology, 20(2), 97–124.

Filters and Filter Failure: Part 3: 2nd Stage Filtration

Welcome to Part 3 of this series of blog posts which focus on the concept that ‘it’s not information overload: it’s filter failure’ first identified by Clay Shirky back in 2008.

If you’ve been following from Parts 1 and 2, you will be familiar with my prototype for 2-stage filtration, a (tongue in cheek) model for discussing how we might better manage information, to ensure that what we interact…

Mozilla Launch Web Literacy Map

Mozilla have launched a series of resources and map defining the 21st Century Skills supporting web literacy, centred around problem-solving, communication, creativity and collaboration, supporting reading, writing and participation.

In a blog post one of the creators, An-Me Chung, said,

Mozilla is dedicated to empowering people with the knowledge they need to read, write and participate online.…

Cross-posted from Doug Belshaw’s blog.

EXPLORING

Reading the Web

Navigation

Using software tools to browse the web

Accessing the web using the common features of a browser

Using hyperlinks to access a range of resources on the web

Reading, evaluating, and manipulating URLs

Recognizing the common visual cues in web services

Exploring browser add-ons and extensions to provide additional functionality

Web Mechanics

Understanding the web ecosystem and Internet stack

Using and understanding the differences between URLs, IP addresses and search terms

Identifying where data is in the network of devices that makes up the Internet

Exporting, moving, and backing up data from web services

Explaining the role algorithms play in creating and managing content on the web

Creating or modifying an algorithm to serve content from around the web

Search

Locating information, people and resources via the web

Developing questions to aid a search

Using and revising keywords to make web searches more efficient

Evaluating search results to determine if the information is relevant

Finding real-time or time-sensitive information using a range of search techniques

Discovering information and resources by asking people within social networks

Credibility

Critically evaluating information found on the web

Comparing and contrasting information from a number of sources

Making judgments based on technical and design characteristics

Discriminating between ‘original’ and derivative web content

Identifying and investigating the author or publisher of web resources

Evaluating how purpose and perspectives shape web resources

Security

Keeping systems, identities, and content safe

Recommending how to avoid online scams and 'phishing’

Managing and maintaining account security

Encrypting data and communications using software and add-ons

Changing the default behavior of websites, add-ons and extensions to make web browsing more secure

BUILDING

Writing the web

Composing for the web

Creating and curating content for the web

Inserting hyperlinks into a web page

Identifying and using HTML tags

Embedding multimedia content into a web page

Creating web resources in ways appropriate to the medium/genre

Setting up and controlling a space to publish on the Web

Remixing

Modifying existing web resources to create something new

Identifying remixable content

Combining multimedia resources to create something new on the web

Shifting context and meaning by creating derivative content

Citing and referencing original content

Designing for the web

Enhancing visual aesthetics and user experiences

Using CSS properties to change the style and layout of a Web page

Demonstrating the difference between inline, embedded and external CSS

Improving user experiences through feedback and iteration

Creating device-agnostic web resources

Coding / Scripting

Creating interactive experiences on the web

Reading and explaining the structure of code

Identifying and applying common coding patterns and concepts

Adding comments to code for clarification and attribution

Applying a script framework

Querying a web service using an API

Accessibility

Communicating in a universally-recognisable way

Using empathy and awareness to inform the design of web content that is accessible to all users

Designing for different cultures which may have different interpretations of design elements

Comparing and exploring how different interfaces impact diverse users

Improving the accessibility of a web page through the design of its color scheme, structure/hierarchy and markup

Comparing and contrasting how different interfaces impact diverse web users

CONNECTING

Participating on the web

Sharing

Providing access to web resources

Creating and using a system to distribute web resources to others

Contributing  and finding content for the benefit of others

Creating, curating, and circulating web resources to elicit peer feedback

Understanding the needs of audiences in order to make relevant contributions to a community

Identifying when it is safe to contribute content in a variety of situations on the web

Collaborating

Creating web resources with others

Choosing a Web tool to use for a particular contribution/ collaboration

Co-creating Web resources

Configuring notifications to keep up-to-date with community spaces and interactions

Working towards a shared goal using synchronous and asynchronous tools

Developing and communicating a set of shared expectations and outcomes

Community Participation

Getting involved in web communities and understanding their practices

Engaging in web communities at varying levels of activity

Respecting community norms when expressing opinions in web discussions

Making sense of different terminology used within online communities

Participating in both synchronous and asynchronous discussions

Privacy

Examining the consequences of sharing data online

Debating privacy as a value and right in a networked world

Explaining ways in which unsolicited third parties can track users across the web

Controlling (meta)data shared with online services

Identifying rights retained and removed through user agreements

Managing and shaping online identities

Open Practices

Helping to keep the web democratic and universally accessible

Distinguishing between open and closed licensing

Making web resources available under an open license

Contributing to an Open Source project

On this week's community call we spent the majority of our time diving into the skills underpinning three of the competencies of Web Literacy Map v1.5. We started off, however, with Doug sharing his post giving an overview of the final push and Greg's post giving his thoughts on last week's call. After reminding ourselves of the scope of these calls, we got started.

Doug introduced a GitHub meta-issue linking to 15 issues for developing the skills under each competency for Web Literacy Map v1.5. We can tick these off when we're happy with them. We did have a decision to make this week: should we aim to organise skills by difficulty? We've bumped up against this issue a few times. Lots of people seem to assume that the skills are ordered by difficulty. In fact, many seem to think that the competencies within each strand go from easiest to most difficult. Whether or not we explicitly communicate the fact, we had a decision to make as to whether we should make an attempt to order the skills within each competency by difficulty.

After some discussion, Tim's suggestion that we should order the skills that it makes sense to order (but not worry about every single competency) won out. In other words, if there's a logical progression then we should reflect that in the ordering of the skills.

Once we'd recorded that decision, we moved onto defining some skills. Doug suggested that we focus on Community Participation, Search and Sharing. As it happened, Search proved so difficult that we didn't get on to Sharing - but we will continue to discuss these asynchronously via GitHub issues.

The skills we decided upon during the call were:

Community Participation

Engaging in web communities at varying levels of activity

Respecting community norms when expressing opinions in web discussions

Making sense of different terminology used within online communities

Participating in both synchronous and asynchronous discussions

Search

Finding real-time or time-sensitive information using a range of search techniques

Using and revising keywords to make your web searches more efficient

Evaluating the relevancy of search results to locate desired information

This week our focus was on finalising the competencies and starting work on defining the skills for v1.5 of the Web Literacy Map. After reminding ourselves of the scope of these calls and reviewing the GitHub issues, we got started. Doug also pointed out the place that we’re discussing the design of the Web Literacy page on the upcoming teach.webmaker.org site.

On last week’s call there was a discussion about revising some of the competencies under the Connecting strand. We had a bit of a debate as to whether updating these possible/desirable for v1.5. Marc pointed out that the issues we’ve identified of some of the competencies being somewhat similar in scope may not be so much of an issue for practitioners. Tim suggested that one solution would be to retain the competencies while updating the competency descriptors and better-define the skills.

The decision we made was to go with Tim’s suggestion, and so we locked down the skills for v1.5. They are reflected in the new REFINE tab of the online spreadsheet (shown above), and listed below:

EXPLORING Reading the web

Navigation

Web Mechanics

Search

Credibility

Security

BUILDING Writing the web

Composing for the web

Remixing

Designing for the web

Coding / Scripting

Accessibility

CONNECTING Participating on the web

Sharing

Collaborating

Community Participation

Privacy

Open Practices

Next, we started to dive into the competency descriptors for each competency as well as the skills themselves. Greg made a process suggestion that we should assume that any uncommented skills from the REVIEW tab on the spreadsheet could be moved directly to the REFINE tab. This was agreed upon and speedily executed.

Once this was done, we noticed that there were a few competencies where no skills had been transferred across. In other words, there were questions or concerns about each of the existing skills for that competency. To rectify this, on Greg’s suggestion we began with the competency descriptor for the new Designing for the web competency. After a few iterations and much back-and-forth, we decided on Enhancing visual aesthetics and user experiences. We also had time to (tentatively) define four skills:

Using CSS properties to change the style and layout of a Web page

Demonstrating the difference between inline, embedded and external CSS

Improving user experiences through feedback and iteration

Creating device-agnostic web resources

We decided not to limit the number of skills to an arbitrary number, and will return to the (perennial) question of whether the order of the skills implies some kind of taxonomy/progression.

Next week we’ll be diving into more of the skills and may need a ‘half-hour hack’ session as well to ensure we do the skills justice.

How to get involved:

Discuss the content of this week’s call on the #TeachTheWeb forum

Help with specific issues on GitHub

This week the community call focused on looking through the Connecting Strand. In the previous call on February 12th, 2015 we spent a good amount of time reviewing the online spreadsheet. In this work we have been examining the skills and competencies across the Web Literacy Map. Under the urging of Marc Lesser, we decided to focus our time during the February 19th, 2015 call to examine the skills and competencies included under the "Connecting" umbrella strand.

The call included Tim Miller, Marc Lesser, and Michelle Thorne. Our fearless leader Doug Belshaw was recharging his batteries in an undisclosed location and Ian O'Byrne hosted the call. Our focus for the call was on comparing, contrasting, and critiquing the skills underpinning the Connecting strand for v1.5. You can review the etherpad here.

We started the meeting with a quite writing hack session to first get our minds into the specifics of the Connecting strand. Following this initial quiet writing and commentary phase, we started to talk through many of the issues we found as we read across just the Connecting strand. The overall discussion was very enlightening, and identifies the fact that many of us are beginning to think through the web lit map on a more granular level.

From a very macro level, one of the interesting pieces of the discussion included trying to understand and conceptualize what is meant by "Connecting" in the strand, and perhaps focusing on "Participating" might be a more appropriate choice of label. We also spent time trying to identify the differences and connections between Connecting/Participating, and the Building strand. The best way that we could conceive of how these would be different, but also compliment each other would be to view the Building strand as encompassing the work of a solitary individual. This would include an composing, remixing, designing, coding/scripting, and considerations of accessibility for one individual as they build online. The Connecting/Participating strand then introduces the complexity and magic of the social side of the Internet. In many ways this can be viewed in moving from Constructivism to Social Constructivism...for the psychologists and sociologists out there. :)

It is apparent from the discussion that we move forward with the development and scaling out of the web literacy map, it is important to create and agree upon a "one sentence" conceptualization, or definition of what each of these elements means. This sentences need to be all available at easy reach on a dashboard for the web lit map. This would include a sentence for each of the strands, skills, and competencies.

In the conference call there was discussion about (once we agree on what is involved in the Connecting strand) changing the following skills:

sharing

collaborating

community participation

privacy

open practices

...into these skills:

contributing

collaborating

supporting communities (or something to disambiguate from 'contributing')

privacy

open practices

The final discussion during the call focused on the inclusion of open practices and participation into the web lit map. We all agreed that open was an important element, and we didn't want to remove it. We also agreed that "open practices" needed more scaffolding for learners. For example, we might start with the top, or first competency being "understanding difference between open and closed licensing of content" and then moving into aspects of finding, using, knowing permissions of open content, and then creating and sharing content under an open, or CC license.