Author Archives: chrislarry

About chrislarry

Chris Lawrence is the Senior Director of the Mozilla Mentor Community. He also oversees the Hive Learning Network, NYC. Hive NYC is a consortium of cultural institutions working together to create and connect learning opportunities for local middle and high school-aged youth in New York, and Chicago. The Mozilla Foundation partners with Hive NYC with funding from the Digital Media and Learning Initiative at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Chris recently participated in Hive NYC as a charter partner member in his former position of Director of Formal and Informal Teaching and Learning At NYSCI he conceived and managed educational programs that utilize digital and web-based tools for both on-site and distance learning applications. Chris has a Master's in Museum Education from the Bank Street College of Education.

We Made It! Mentor Team Make Week

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Making It in Brooklyn: Webmaker Mentor Team Make Week in Brooklyn

Last week we had Mozilla Mentor Community team members from Toronto, Germany and New York City together for whirlwind week of making, plotting, talking (some talking is OK!) and of course, etherpad spawning. Here’s the overview from Day 1.

DAY 2

A fun Mozilla NYC dinner (with special guest David Ascher) at Rucola followed by raucous debates and night caps at the Nu Hotel, we had renewed vigor for Wednesday. Early in the day we revisited our Task Board and giddily moved sticky notes to track our progress–from “Make” to “Making” and some to “Made!” We also set up our projects for the day and were joined by teammates Beatrice Chen (Hive NYC and Mentor team archivist extraordinaire) and Julia Vallera (Hive NYC and Mentor team educator/superhero).

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We spent time exploring how sites and communities like Mentor Mob might make our Activity Kits and resources more visible and remixable. We honed in on MOOC and Maker Party plans and messaging. We also reviewed a mentor badge  assessment tool that Chloe Varelidi, Jess Klein and Atul Varma have been working on, and outlined the process and criteria by which mentors will earn badges and benefits on Webmaker.org. Leah and Kathryn led day two of a design charrette with Hive Toronto to gather input for Toronto’s RFP process. Through this facilitated process, they ended up with many a white board filled with thoughts and diagrams. By the end, they had articulated – in draft form – Hive Toronto’s core beliefs and had building blocks for the application process.

Guide to Wednesday’s Makes:

  • Mentor Mob Webmaker playlists
  • Julia prototyped building an Activity Kit in Thimble, Knowing Your Neighborhood
  • We continued to hone our Maker Party 2013 messaging–it’s a global party to celebrate all the things we can make thanks to the collaborative power of the web!
  • Met with Open Badges team to feedback and iterate on peer assessed badges
  • Laura shipped a color version of the #teachtheweb MOOC user experience infographic 
  • We shipped the job description for an open position in the UK to run webmaker events, build community and talent scout for Hive London (know anyone good?)
  • Shipped our thoughts and messaging about the upcoming #teachtheweb MOOC–in short: Learn how to teach digital literacies, master webmaking tools, develop your own educational resources, and take what you learned back to your communities and classrooms.http://webmaker.org/teach
  • Laura, Michelle and Matt shipped the Mentor badges brief

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Making It in Brooklyn: Webmaker Mentor Team Make Week

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This week the Webmaker Mentor team is meeting in Brooklyn, NYC to plot together.

Too often at team meetings there’s a lot of yakking and not much hacking. So we decided to run the week like scrum and focus all our tasks as clear “makes”, i.e. concrete things we can produce and ship.

Here’s our task board. Ooo! So many post-its.
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Big things lie ahead, so our mind meld this week is an effort to finalize plans and sort out details for how we’ll continue building the Mentor community. We’re offering training, developing new content, designing badges, and formalizing ways to make it easy for people to connect and to showcase the successes and inspiring stories that result.

Of course, conversations stray into other, more colorful topics. Like which Dungeons and Dragons characters we like to play (OH: “When I’m  feeling sexy, I like to be an elf. When I’m realistic, I play a dwarf.”)  Or an existential debate after seeing this near-endless scroll of all  the people in the world.

We’ve also made great progress on planning our #teachtheweb MOOC. This online course kicks off May 2 and runs for 9 weeks. We’re hacking on the lesson plans, communications infrastructure and ways to make it easy and fun for people to participate and get ready for the big Maker Party 2013 campaign.

Two of us were also in Toronto helping Hive Toronto “make” the parameters of their project RFP and best ways forward about funding and building Hive projects in this emergent new Hive.

Today we are diving deeper into different ways to surface Webmaker and Hive projects as key engagement ramps for the Maker Party 2013 Campaign. Stay tuned on how this all shapes up, and if you’d like to get involved in these efforts, sign up at https://webmaker.org/en-US/teach/.<

What we made so far:

  • A diagram of how to participate in the #teachtheweb MOOC (see below)
  • Updated the #teachtheweb MOOC site
  • Tightened messaging around the Maker Party 2013

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The Sprout Fund receives $500,000 grant from MacArthur Foundation to launch Hive Pittsburgh

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Reposted from the Sprout Funds Remake Learning blog

Written by Barbara Ray on February 8, 2013

Pittsburgh Hive Learning Network /

 

Pittsburgh was asked to join New York and Chicago in becoming only the third Hive Learning Network in the nation.

With a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pittsburgh’s many youth-serving organizations, school districts, mentors and educators are coming together in a coordinated way to create a seamless set of learning opportunities across the city for kids and teens.

Teens are returning to libraries to use new digital media tools in The Labs @ CLP , learning webmaking, and media literacy at Pittsburgh Hack Jam. At Makeshop, kids and adults are making things together. The Oglebay Institute is creating arts-based science education that integrates left and right-brain thinking. The Pittsburgh Youth Media is turning aspiring storytellers into cub reporters, while at Hip Hop on L.O.C.K., teens are taking a spin at music making while also developing leadership skills. And under the Hive, all these efforts will be connected and integrated so tweens and teens can use the city as a big game board for learning.

Hive Learning Networks advance the principles of Connected Learning, a framework for linking young people’s academic achievement, peer social networks, and personal interests so that they can learn “anytime, anywhere.”

The support of the MacArthur Foundation will enable Pittsburgh to develop a model for learning that expands the boundaries of learning beyond the single institution of the school and incorporates other important community institutions like museums, libraries, afterschool programs, and community centers. The first Hive was launched in New York City in 2007, followed by Chicago in 2009.

“The Pittsburgh region is a leader in rethinking learning to prepare young people for the challenges and opportunities of the digital era, and just the right location for the third Hive Learning Network.” said Connie Yowell, Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation.

“We have long-standing relationships with some of Pittsburgh’s most renowned institutions, but our investment in the Sprout Fund represents a much broader partnership with the many organizations working together on a new vision for learning.”

The Sprout Fund, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization, will administer the Hive Learning Network and make grants to spur new connected learning projects and programs for tweens, teens, and young adults in the greater Pittsburgh region.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for our region,” said Cathy Lewis Long, Executive Director of The Sprout Fund. “Launching a Hive Learning Network in Pittsburgh will help us provide even more remarkable learning experiences for youth in our region.”