We Made It! Wrapping Up Our Series of Web Literacy Trainings
My colleague Molly Schwartz and I kicked off a new series of Web Literacy trainings at METRO this morning. As part of our grant with Mozilla Foundation, we pilot-tested a new round of activities to help learners better understand the ways in which the environment of the web impacts the information we ask for and receive. We also tested a new badging platform as part of this work.
What follows is a short conversation Molly and I had regarding our work together on the third workshop in our Web Literacy series, including our preparation process and the workshop itself.
Davis: Hi Molly! We made it through three workshop on developing Web Literacy skills! Welcome to our final blog post regarding our series of three Web Literacy trainings.
Molly: Helloooo Davis, yes we did indeed!
Davis: I think we did really, really well today. Our session ran on time, we covered a lot of ground on privacy and security issues, and we had really great conversations throughout the session. What did you think?
Molly: Yes, it was definitely easier to stay focused on a core topic for a 3-hour session. I thought your call to focus on privacy and digital security was a good one.
Davis: Thank you!
I started the session with an old standby: Map the Web, Perform the Web. Since 75% of our participants had been in the first workshop of the series, I picked things back up with a modified version of Perform the Web. This time, after we discussed how information travels on the web, we had a chat about where we might see vulnerabilities in the internet as a system. You were holding the “client” sign and had a couple of great points about the more human elements of privacy and security concerns.
Molly: Yeah, I actually think everyone benefited for a repeat of Map the Web, Perform the Web. I certainly did! It was interesting to think about whether vulnerabilities happen in between points in the network chain or at certain points.
I was happy someone pointed at my “client” sign when we were talking about vulnerabilities. The web is meant to be easy to connect to and share information across — oftentimes the biggest opportunities for protection and the biggest threats to security happen right at the client. That’s why the content we covered today’s session is so important.
Davis: Agreed. We then reviewed the more common threats facing our humble internet these days: DDoS attacks, phishing, malware… I was very grateful that you were able to answer a few questions about Virtual Private Networks. I confess I am still researching that aspect of online privacy.
Molly: I enjoyed hearing you tie in some of the big virus and DDoS attacks into the session. I think it helps people understand why this is so relevant.
We started off Safety First, Part 1 with a discussion about privacy. What does privacy mean to us in our everyday lives, both offline and online? Everyone created a brief journal entry about what they did yesterday, and then we circled the activities that involved devices connecting to the web. It’s surprising how many little things we do online and how many vulnerabilities there are.
Then we went over metadata collection, cookies, and how we can track our trackers using Lightbeam. I really like tools like Lightbeam and MIT Media Lab’s Immersion. Getting an overview of how interconnected we are online is always fascinating.
Davis: After a break, I picked things up with the second half of the new Safety First! curriculum. It was nice to be able to work through some practical advice on how to build a stronger armor with the tools we use to go online: browser settings, password tips, how to clear your history…
And of course, we didn’t just leave it there. I’d also brought along a couple of resource guides for those who felt they’d like to explore further.
Molly: It was pretty nice working with a small group this time. Everyone came ready to engage and share their own knowledge and personal experiences. A big thanks to all of our participants for this!
Davis: Looking back on our three workshops, I have a lot of take-aways. First, I think I’d structure a future three-part web literacy series a bit differently. With feedback from our participants, the more pressing topics seem to be focused on how information travels across the web, where we might find vulnerabilities, and how we can examine the veracity of online information given these complexities.
In my experience, privacy itself seems to be a polarizing issue: the folks in the room are invested and therefore already know a tremendous amount, and those who are maybe not as well-versed in these topics tend to shy away. It may help to sprinkle privacy and security activities in among the other topics rather than keeping it separated. And I think that, while HTML and CSS are great topics, they are deserving of their own longer, more in depth series of workshops.
How about you? Did these three workshop bring about any lightbulb moments?
Molly: Yeah, I was really struck by how ambitious was to take on Web Literacy as a cohesive, comprehensive curriculum. There are just so many components that go into truly understanding the web and how it works! I think we all agree that it’s a critically topic.
But people have different associations with web literacy, and different styles of teaching and learning. Some people think of web literacy as understanding networks. Other people think of building websites. And others think about how to evaluate web content for veracity. I really liked the approach that Mozilla came up with, and you helped implement, of creating activities and games that help people embody and enact the fundamentals of the web — potentially the more semantic, esoteric side that people need to understand in order to shape its future.
I think that people in our profession (librarians and archivists) can be delightfully practical and skills-based. So I think some people came into the workshops wanted to learn about tools they can use, but hopefully they came out of them with a deeper understanding of how things like algorithms and indexing and tagging work. Because all of these things will change over time, but they are built on the same principles.
I came out of these workshops delighted to have learned from you and the Mozilla folks about how to approach teaching web literacy, and also feeling like we need to put more work into prioritizing what it is important and how to teach it. Thanks so much for including me in this initiative!
Davis: It was great to work with you on this, Molly! I say that every week, but it is true. I was very happy to be able to focus on my half of the content knowing that you’d be able to take good care of the other half of it. And I definitely learned a lot about these topics from you as well!
Read our experience teaching part 1 and part 2 of this workshop. Slides for all three workshops are available at the link.
