I thought you all might be interested in the following announcement about a new Mozilla Education initiative we launched today, the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested, be they educators, students, or anyone else.
Frank ============= We invite you to help turn the open Web into a rich learning environment and explore new possibilities for using Firefox add-ons to support learning online, by participating in the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge sponsored by the Mozilla Foundation with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of its digital media and learning initiative. We are looking for designers, educators and software developers who want to turn their innovative ideas about learning online into working prototypes in the form of Firefox add-ons. We'll help you refine your designs and teach you how to create Firefox add-ons using Jetpack and other Mozilla technologies. Participants creating the best prototpes will be invited to the Jetpack for Learning Design Camp and the SXSW Interactive conference in March 2010. How does it work? Come up with an innovative idea for a Firefox add-on that brings personal learning features to the open Web. Create a mock-up and submit it on the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge web-site before midnight (US Pacific Time) on 27 November 2009. Based on the quality of submissions, up to 60 participants will be invited into a 6-week online course that covers design/UX and technical aspects of add-on development and will help you turn your mock-up into a working prototype. We'll select the most promising prototypes and invite up to ten of their creators to further refine their add-ons at a face-to-face Jetpack for Learning Design Camp in March 2010 and to attend SXSW Interactive immediately following the Design Camp. What kind of ideas are we looking for? We are looking for your ideas on how Firefox add-ons, preferably add-ons created with Mozilla's Jetpack technology, can turn the web browser into a platform for rich personal learning on the open web. You are not restricted to work on any particular type of application. Here are a few examples to get you started ... * Turn social bookmarking and page annotation into effective learning tools (for example by including peer-assessment features) * Allow users to easily compile personal e-portfolios (for example, by combining their own works — photos, comments, articles—with testimonials others have written about them) * Let the browser suggest relevant materials for learning (for example, by automatically identifying additional articles based on what sites a person visits or which topics they search for) * Support social learning communities (for example, by making it easy to find and connect with others who share similar learning interests) Who should apply? Participation is open to individuals and teams, but we especially encourage submissions from inter-disciplinary groups (designers, educators, and software developers). You don't need to be a computer geek, but participants are expected to implement their ideas as Firefox add-ons, which will require writing some software code. You must be at least 18 years old in order to participate in the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge. You must also make your submission and your add-ons available for public use under open licenses. See the Jetpack for Learning web site for complete rules. Contact You can find more information about the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge, including how to apply, on our web site: http://design-challenge.mozilla.org/jetpack-for-learning Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that sponsors the Mozilla project and devotes its resources to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet. We do this by supporting the community of Mozilla contributors and by assisting others who are building technologies that benefit users around the world. Through the Mozilla Education initiative we work with computer science, design and business schools around the world to create learning opportunities for a new generation of Mozilla community members and help to drive a new wave of participatory, student-led learning. By doing this we hope to move closer to Mozilla's broader goal of making openness, participation and distributed decision-making more common experiences in Internet life. More information is available at education.mozilla.org. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. In 2006 MacArthur launched its digital media and learning initiative to explore how young people are changing as a result of digital media use and what the implications are for libraries, museums and schools. More information is available at www.macfound.org/education. -- Frank Hecker [email protected] -- Frank Hecker _______________________________________________ tos mailing list [email protected] http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
