Libraries, Literacy and Leadership: A Journey with the Mozilla Community
Introducing the Project
In 2016, I embarked on a web literacy project with the Mozilla Foundation and Providence Public Library (PPL) in Rhode Island. With the support from the Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS) , we set out to leverage libraries, as community educators, to learn and teach web literacy skills. The project was a good fit with PPL’s strategic goals and our existing model of educational programs. We foresaw an opportunity to grow our programming, deepen our knowledge, and share our learning with our partners in the community and the Rhode Island library system. As project manager, the experience has been more fulfilling than I had envisioned. Read on to learn why!
The Beginning: A Cohort Model
I remember feeling overwhelmed with all the teaching and learning resources on Mozilla’s website (learning.mozilla.org). I didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to pilot them with library staff and patrons. Then I realized, I didn’t need to be the expert. I could be learning alongside my peers.
I corralled a cohort of library staff from 4 different library systems in the state. We met monthly and explored one or more of Mozilla’s teaching/learning activities and brainstormed how the activities could be tweaked for different ages and in different contexts: small group programming and one-on-one just-in-time teaching.
One of the outcomes from this work was an awareness of how to teach the web conceptually and offline. This helped us reach patrons with low digital literacy skills and kept learners of all ages engaged. We also learned to define web literacy as a collection of sub-skills that allows one to read, write and participate on the web. This was my first Aha moment — the shift from consumerism to creator of the web. This revelation demystified, for me, the reason for encouraging people to learn how to code.
Another part of the work with Mozilla includes piloting a micro credentialing system, issuing digital badges to teens and adult learners in our structured coding program. What we hope to accomplish is using digital badges as evidence of learning to on-ramp learners to more intensive training programs and increase their employment opportunities. Another Aha moment for me was to see a ripple effect of web literacy — making coding accessible to the common person. Thank you to our coding instructor, Don Gregory, who has single handedly offered quality education that is accessible to everyone. We are building capacity by using alumni from our coding program to teach these classes.
Phase Two: Train the Trainers Model
In the second phase of this work, I continued to work with library staff in a train-the-trainers model and we extended the reach to the adult education community. It has been easy enough to offer training, but harder to encourage others to train their peers, patrons, and students. I would say this part of the journey is unfolding slower than I had hoped, but it’s coming along and I’m still working to move it forward albeit inch-by-inch. Long after our project officially ends, I’ll continue working with community organizations, libraries and with PPL staff in a collaborative effort to help the people we serve reap the full benefits of the Internet.
This work has been so rewarding because each time I facilitate a training, I see how grateful participants are for the opportunity to feel more empowered than they did when they entered the room. Their feedback indicates they are leaving with a deeper understanding of how the Internet works, why it’s free (kind of) and the price we pay. I hope they also feel they have some sense of control over their privacy on the web. This leads to another part of my journey: Internet health.
Advocacy for Internet Health
Although the focus of our work for the past 18 months has been on web literacy skills, once I understood the broader issues that we refer to under the umbrella of Internet Health, I saw my role as the messenger of these global issues: digital inclusion, privacy/security, decentralization, web literacy , and open practice. Using privacy/security as an ‘in’, I am raising awareness and provoking dialogue around what it means to thrive in a digital world that is healthy and equitable. With some audiences, the introduction to Internet health issues comes at the end, not as a conclusion but as a reflection, an invitation to think about the web from another perspective. I preface it with the idea that the web brought us together for this training.
Leadership
Being part of the Mozilla Web Literacy Leadership team has engaged me as a learner, a teacher and a citizen of the web. Of the many unexpected outcomes of this work, the one I appreciate the most is learning from and with colleagues around the country. The diversity of our roles, our work contexts and our projects has allowed me to look at the work we do from different angles. It’s been interesting to see how our work has taken shape in big and small libraries, with volunteers, library staff, patrons, adult learners and the veteran community. It has truly felt like a community effort. My biggest take away is that we are making strides and we still have a lot of work to do.
Next Steps: Learning, Teaching and Doing
The next steps in my work will be to learn new ways of teaching web literacy to different audiences, improve the train-the-trainers model to build capacity, and continue advocacy efforts as I become more adept in this endeavor. What I wish for is to see more people, at all skill levels, advocating to make changes in public policy that result in a healthier Internet. Teaching web literacy skills was the start of this journey and I don’t see the end on the horizon.
