MozFest2017 Recap
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend this year’s MozFest in London due to my work with the IMLS web literacy grant. I had an amazing experience. One of the best “conferences” I’ve ever attended.
Before providing a summary of the sessions that I attended, I’ll share some key takeaways from the festival:
- The international aspect of the fest is powerful. An an American, it was refreshing to be surrounded by voices and perspectives from all over the globe.
- Participatory activities are magical. I was struck by the willingness of all participants at the fest to engage. The environment was open and welcoming.
- A strong theme of slow down & the need for some quiteness. For a healthy internet, more reflection instead of the constant loop of reaction is necessary.
- Imagination = hope
All of the sessions that I attended at MozFest provided me with some tools or stategies that I am looking forward to utilizing in my personal and professional life. I’d like to share some of those with you:
Trackers are Creepy: What they know about you, and how you can fight back
Facilitator: Bianca Danforth, Front End Experiments Engineer at Mozilla
In this session, I learned about cookies and how tracking works with the Lightbeam visualization tool.
Is anything private? After listening to a clip of the podcast, IRL, where a private detective was able to unearth the podcast host, Veronica Belmont’s, social security number in 4 seconds, I began to worry.
Ways to protect our data: Check your browser settings to make sure that tracking and ads are blocked. Browse in private mode. Use the Duck Duck Go search engine. Use Panopticlick to test if your browser if safe. Unfortunately, all of our devices have a unique fingerprint that can be linked to our online activity. The only way to avoid this fingerprinting is by using the Tor browser.
Want to learn more check out Bianca’s Privacy Resource List
Dialogues & Debates with Mishi Choudhary
I am tracked therefore I am
Key takeaway: we deserve a better internet. Users are currently behavior creators for corporations, advertisers, and governments. Users need to drop the shruggy attitude. Speak up, stand up, engage. We need more of these: quietness, federated services, universal ad-blocking, nature videos.
Fighting Fake News with Literacy Skills
Sarah Morris librarian with the Nucleus Learning Network (Austin, TX) shared the robust news literacy curriculum she has developed: Mission Information: Teaching Kit.
Web Literacy Leaders — How to Grow the Internet Health Network
The web literacy leaders facilitated a thought-provoking spectrogram activity that evaluated the tension between 2 ideas i.e. safety and inclusion. They also shared their experience with teaching web literacy in their communities. I plan on using more spectrograms in the trainings that I provide. I think they are a fun and easy way to participate.
Digital Inclusion Resource Library Demo: Sharing Materials & Building Community
Web Literacy Leader, Matthew Kopel, share NDIA’s latest project: the Digital Inclusion Resource Library built by Related Works. The repository will allow folks working in the digital inclusion space to share documentation, policies, and instructions.
Logging into Life: Working with Older Adults in Digital Literacy Education
Meggie Lasher, librarian from North Carolina, worked with the group to develop common, understandable language around technology topics such as social media, Twitter, hardware/ software, and the Internet. The group worked together to describe these complicated topics in simple terms.
Algorithms unpacked: creating learning tools to demystify and comprehend the machines in our lives
Facilitator: Tin Geber
In this highly interactive Shed session, we came up with analogies for algorithms through drawings and skits. We also shared our most common questions about algorithms and developed some teaching strategies around answering these questions. Most questions from the group expressed some fear and concern over the ethics of algorithms and their influence in our everyday actions and decisions.
To Datopolis and beyond
Exploring concepts of data sharing and open data through the Datopolis board game.
How do you build internet health for transitioning veterans?
Web Literacy Leader, Kelly Hudson, shared strategies for working with veterans transitioning back to civilian life. We discussed the challenges that veterans face and the necessity of web literacy skills to search for jobs, find homes, and sign up for online accounts.
Exhibits
Data Detox Bar: https://myshadow.org/detox
The Glass Room: https://theglassroom.org/
#mozfest2017
