#TeachTheWeb
I have been following Mozilla’s Webmaker training since it was launched last week.
Last week’s concentration was on helping build Open Educational Resources (OER) together. With a link to this page (good read though, you should check it out).
The section which caught my attention the most was this:
It drew my mind to the clear similarities between the ancient cavemen drawings to the now sophisticated web.
And with the right amount of knowledge and skill sets among ourselves, everyone, not just a select few can help push the web forward till we reach another juncture where our intrinsic human capabilities help churn a new tool for capturing human knowledge.
We started by getting used to the Webmaker teaching Kits so we could help fulfill the web literacy map objectives by documenting what is that we have to share. Project ideas or activity guides. You could either remix from a whole bunch of resources. Or simply hack up one of your own from some cool templates.
Some of the top tips given to Webmakers was to:
- Use the kits
- Teach with the kits
- Hack the kits (into your own) I believe this method was perfect as it got makers to go through the experience they were about to offer to others, first hand. Bringing about some amount of sophisticated understanding of the tools at play.
The Climb #
In my experience with teaching people development or design related subjects. I get the idea that most people are eager to learn, acquire the required set of skills to be able to be “Gurus of the web” or “Ninjas” in some coding sphere. But then during training when they look up at the giant feat they have to accomplish it gets daunting (like looking up at Everest from the bottom). One might simply quit just thinking about it. And it takes time. Something most people keep convincing themselves that they don’t have.
IMHO, when the feats or tasks to be accomplished on the way to becoming a “Jedi Master” are dissected into lesser chunks, say “Padawan” bits, one might find smaller accomplishments delightful and this feeling (you know, the rush ;) ) could propel one onto greater heights. Maybe not the mountain peak today. Hanging on a cliff one time, scaling up the mountain wall the next. But remember, it takes a strong will and lots of determination to actually complete something or get to the top in most cases. And software engineering or web development isn’t the only thing thats hard. If you keep quiting everything you will never get anything done. And remember:
“You have not failed yet until you quit” - Dunno who said that.
See you at the top !
Images #
- - Me
- John Salinero
- Sam Burgon