On becoming a Mozilla Web Literacy Leader
I’m excited to officially announce that I’m participating in Mozilla’s Web Literacy Leader program!
I’m a member of the Volunteer Services Team at Multnomah County Library (MCL) in Portland, Oregon. Much of my day-to-day work involves creating better access to volunteer experiences at the library, connecting people with information, and digging into the volunteer database. Through this program I’ll be able to stretch my leadership muscles and explore web literacy.
What’s this all about?
This 6-month program is the next phase of a pilot project I participated in from July 2016 to January 2017. The initial project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, involved several library systems and was focused on creating library-specific training on web literacy skills. The MCL team of six employees delivered training sessions covering web mechanics, online privacy, and coding (based on Mozilla’s web literacy curriculum) to a group of 30 of our fellow employees. Each person attended these sessions over the course of a few months.
Joanna Milner and I led sessions on coding and programming languages. Neither of us had much experience with this, but we both believed in the sentiment of this GIF…
…so we made a great pair. Not only did we teach things to fellow employees, but they taught us things, too. One of my favorite moments was when someone compared coding to knitting which, as a knitter myself, I loved.
For the next phase of this project, Joanna and I have joined forces again. Here’s our plan over the next several months:
- Create a cohort of around 10 MCL staff, selected from the initial group of 30 from the first phase.
- Lead the group through a Design Thinking process where they will each create and implement one or more resources to share with other staff, volunteers, and/or patrons.
- Along the way, we’ll present training and resources, facilitate discussion and brainstorm new, productive, and continuous ways to share information with colleagues and patrons.
A note on Open Leadership
Transparency is a big deal nowadays. It’s hugely important to Mozilla, too. So much, in fact, that they built a free online training about Open Leadership, which I recommend if you have an hour to spare.
To me, working openly means being receptive to other voices and being willing to change my mind when needed. The concept also fits in with my professional field of Volunteer Engagement where collaboration is key. The same is true of public libraries. I also believe in sharing things I’ve learned because I gain so much from other people sharing their experiences. It’s why I’m so active in my local and online communities of Volunteer Engagement professionals.
I’ll be posting monthly updates here (or over on Joanna’s page) as part of the leadership program, so feel free to follow along. And, if you have thoughts or resources to share, please leave a comment. I look forward to reading your ideas!
