Tag Archives: hack jam

A New Spin on Freedom of Speech

Posted on by
1

This post was written by NYC high school senior Sharon Mizrahi, and also appeared on the Hive Learning Network column on Huffington Post Teen.

“Don’t put others down.”

“Keep your heart open to surprises!”

“Speak up – don’t keep things secret if they are hurting you inside.”

These were just a few of many words that graced the walls of a conference room at the West Side YMCA last Saturday. The youth-created posters, adorned with messages of hope, change, and inspiration, vividly captured the spirit of the Hive NYC First Amendment Hack Jam. Nine organizations participated in the event, including the American Constitution Society, New York Civil Liberties Union, Mozilla, Global Action Project, The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project), People’s Production House, Tribeca Film Institute, Common Sense Media, and World Up. Each hosted an array of activities and workshops that rejuvenated the poignant foundation upon which our nation was built: the freedom of speech.

Photo credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

The American Constitution Society set the scene for the afternoon, distributing pocket-sized pamphlets of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Gettysburg Address. Piled high beside the pamphlets was a curious mountain of black and white armbands and permanent markers, as well as a flyer detailing the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The lawsuit was sparked in 1968 by John and Mary Beth Tinker, two high school students suspended for wearing anti-Vietnam War armbands in class. The following year, the Supreme Court upheld their right to self-expression under the First Amendment freedom of speech clause. At the Hack Jam, youth revitalized the landmark decision by embellishing the blank armbands with symbols of justice and peace. Slogans like “Love is colorblind,” “No more war,” and “Equal opportunity for all” graced the arms of many across the room, charging the air with a vibrant sense of unity.

Photo credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

That strident empowerment coursed through the veins of “Know Your Rights,” a brief video showcased by the New York Civil Liberties Union on how to recognize and stop LGBTQ discrimination. The film provided viewers with the tools to combat prejudice and the confidence to stand up for their identity. The NYCLU also shed light on a different kind of discrimination through a particularly striking pamphlet entitled Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools.

Authored by Elora Mukherjee, the report unravels a jarring disparity among the city’s public schools, detailing the daily verbal and physical abuse that hundreds of thousands of students endure from NYPD School Safety Agents (SSAs). According to Mukherjee’s research, disproportionate numbers of untrained SSAs are often assigned to low-performing institutions in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Officers accustomed to dealing with criminals on the street bring the same approach to the classroom, and as a result, students face degradation that far surpasses the bounds of a metal detector or backpack search. For many teens, Mukherjee explains, unwarranted and intrusive pat-downs by officers of the opposite sex are commonplace, as well as arrests for non-criminal offenses such as arriving late to class or walking down the hallway without a pass. The pamphlet offers essential resources for those caught in an oppressive environment, but most importantly, it raises the awareness necessary for change, prompting students to cultivate their voices and ensure they are heard.

The LAMP also sparked innovative interplay between young adults and their surroundings, inviting youth to watch and “talk back” to several different television commercials. Using video editing software, teens remixed Coca-Cola videos, Bratz Doll promos, and a rather controversial Dr. Pepper advertisement touting the slogan “It’s not for women.” The edited commercials were regularly screened for all to see, eliciting passionate responses from the crowd.

Mozilla introduced its signature Hackasaurus X-Ray Goggles tool to the festivities, encouraging attendees to redesign websites with their own social, political, and personal messages. One participant crafted a resonant webpage illustrating the injustice of racial discrimination, proclaiming the headline “It’s Just Not Right” against a background composed entirely of pairs of eyes. Global Action Project also brought social media to life through a make-your-own-meme activity, featuring photographs of students locked behind jail bars and witty captions to match with each photo.

Photo credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

Guest speakers took the microphone throughout the Hack Jam, sharing their challenges and triumphs in the realm of creative expression. Vee Bravo, currently at the Tribeca Film Institute and former founder of the hip-hop magazine Stress, discussed the rise and fall of his publication after being sued by New York State on alleged subway graffiti charges. Katherine Fry of The LAMP further explored the legal arena, recalling how educators initially feared that her organization’s remixed commercials violated copyright law. Fry clarified the mysteries surrounding copyrights, explaining the fair use provision that protects parody artists from plagiarism allegations.

But from first hour to last, the powerhouse that kept the day running was World Up’s continuous DJ mix – and thumping beats weren’t the only sounds passing through the speakers. In pairs, teens interviewed one another about pressing issues such as same-sex marriage, going “green,” and bully prevention. The exchanges were recorded and weaved into the music track for a uniquely immersive vibe.

And by the end of the Hack Jam, youth and mentors alike carried a new-found understanding of the scope and power of freedom of speech. In a single afternoon at the YMCA, this core of human liberty shone in all of its brilliant glory, hearkening back to the vision of our Founding Fathers – and spearheading forward into a future of infinite possibilities.

To see more of Hive Learning Network on Huffington Post Teen, click here.

1st Amendment Hack Jam: A Raging Success!

Posted on by
1

Last Saturday at Hive NYC’s 1st Amendment Hack Jam, youth from throughout the five boroughs exercised their right to free speech and engaged in dialogue around self-expression, struggling against oppression and critiquing mainstream cultural messages.

Photo Credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

They came, they spoke freely, they ate pizza.

Photo credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

Using Mozilla’s Hackasaurus X-Ray Goggles and still developing webpage makinging tool, teens remixed websites and created their own.

Common Sense Media gave attendees a platform for expressing their thoughts on how it feels to be silenced, and posted up some of the excellent results:

Photo credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

At the World UP table, participants asked one another about controversial topics like same-sex marriage, the environment, bullying, and the state of education. Below, Aaron Lazansky, aka DJ Spaze Craft One, provides some guidance to two young people getting ready to record their opinions:

Photo Credit: Ari Joseph/World UP

Pop Squad!, a project of the People’s Production House, allowed participants to hack videos and other media content using Mozilla Popcorn Maker to add pop-up commentary. Check out that work here.

Some really compelling messages about our criminal justice system and its impact on youth came out of the Global Action Project‘s initiative for the day. Given photos of people of different ages and walks of life being arrested, or interacting with law enforcement in other ways, Hack Jam attendees added thought-provoking statements including the ones below:

That wasn’t all, though:

  • The remixed ads created at The LAMP station gained applause for their humorous takes on how commercial culture manipulates viewers. Katherine Fry from The LAMP also spoke to attendees about Fair Use – what it means and how it protects us.
  • Lawyers from the American Constitution Society answered questions about student rights and let participants make armbands to experience solidarity with students from the 1960s who were suspended from school–and later vindicated by the Supreme Court–for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War.
  • The New York Civil Liberties Union showcased their “school to prison pipeline” interactive online game and showed videos about LGBTQ student rights in schools.
  • And Vee Bravo of the Tribeca Film Institute spoke about how it felt to lose a fight with New York City over a free-speech issue in the early 1990s: Stress, a hip-hop magazine co-founded by Bravo, ran a parody of an anti-graffiti ad, changing it into a protest against the city’s harsh treatment of graffiti writers.  The city demanded they take the magazine out of circulation, and they didn’t have the resources to effectively fight back.

What the heck is a Hive Pop-Up?

Posted on by
3

When we were tasked with “doing something cool for/with youth” at last fall’s Mozilla Festival in London, we had just come off the heels of World Maker Faire where the Hive NYC booth won a Editor’s Choice Blue Ribbon award. So we hacked on the model of bringing together youth programs while also framing the activity(s) as a proof of concept about Hive Learning Networks, and the first Hive Pop-Up was born.

Sanda from WNYC Radio Rookies showing youth how to create radio podcasts at the London Hive Pop-Up.

You can read more about subsequent versions of Hive Pop-Ups that have run in Tokyo and Toronto, and most recently here in NYC at our 1st Amendment Hack Jam. It also looks like there may be Hive Pop-Ups popping up (yes, yes I did) in Athens, San Francisco and more in Toronto-stay tuned.

The Hive Pop-Up has also been a driver in what Mozilla is doing with the Summer Code Party and is positioned as one of the larger-scale events that groups can run as part of that initiative.

I attempted to publicly process my thinking on these kind of programs in my DML Ignite talk on “Learning Parties” which outlines what I find exciting about thinking about learning in this hyper social butterfly way.

But it was just recently that I collected my own thinking on the Hive Pop-Up and what it might mean as a shared language for Hive NYC (and beyond…) so here is where my head is at.  This is an attempt to distill what Hive Pop-Ups are and the purposes they can serve, but they are not incompatible as outlined and in many cases these events will have more than one motivating driver. Feel free to chew on or add/subtract.

The Hive Pop-Up as proof of concept

The Hive Learning Network concept apparently has some juice! I am regularly fielding inquiries that can be summed up with, “How do I get a Hive in my town?” and almost always my response is, “Organize a Hive Pop-Up!”

Let’s be honest, Hive isn’t the easiest concept to communicate. Those of us from the early days remember the conversations, debates, attempts, confusion, excitement and time it took us to have “a thing” we could even half explain to our bosses. There were times we thought it might not work, but perhaps all we missed were the actual moments to experience, participate in and witness it working. The first World Maker Faire and early Emoti-Con events were eye-opening and helped demonstrate the potential.  It might have taken us a few years to “get it”, but do a 5 hour pop-up where 7, 10, 15 organizations  come together with some of their best programs, add youth (and pizza) and all participants will then be able to answer, “Why Hive?” Interacting and learning with peers, seeing youth remix and re-interpret their programs, being part of the energy in the room, and maybe most importantly, seeing youth travel from different activities/interactions guiding their own path through the controlled chaos. It makes the excitement, messiness, fun and learning value obvious. So as we are increasingly asked to plant Hive seeds and bring Hive-ness to new locations, the Hive Pop-Up has become our advance strategy.

The Hive Pop-Up as Hive NYC event strategy

We have generally referred to NYC-specific events as “hack jams” (case in point, last weekend’s 1st Amendment event), but here’s why I think it’s time we lay that term to rest.

“Hack jam” is confusing on three levels: 1) Those outside of tech or design fields are like, “Huh?”; 2) Those who are familiar with a hack jam in tech/design contexts are like, “Thats not a hack jam,” usually because we aren’t always hacking/building something explicitly or collectively trying to solve a challenge. Generally due to our collective nature our events are more a hybrid collaboration; and 3) I think Hackasaurus and “hack jam” are very wisely connected, and as we continue to explore Hackasaurus and learning we appreciate that these terms are closely associated and don’t want to dilute that message.

So we’re embracing the fact that the Hive Pop-Up isn’t just for other cities.  It’s how we can truly bring Hive to life, as a powerful, united front.  Sometimes these events are planned by Hive HQ, but others are driven by members, like Emoti-Con, Digital Waves Youth Media Festival or the upcoming Minecraft Jam at the Brooklyn Public Library. They all represent Hive as “placed-based learning” for short bursts of time. These Hive Pop-Up events also offer us the opportunity to collectively demonstrate Hive ideas and present a public face to other educators, press, the public and most importantly to youth.

The Hive Pop-Up as storefront

And we have reached that point where the reality circles back to the metaphor. The original genesis of the name is the funky, subversive retail store that pops up for X amount of time before vanishing. Why aren’t we actually doing more of that? Many of us fret about space, recruitment, mixed inter-organizational agendas when we start to roll out programs/events/experiences, especially if they are experimental in nature. Maybe it’s time to take our work out where people are, where youth are, be out in the communities instead of always behind our pillars, office suites or in our home neighborhoods. I’m not suggesting that we abandon these locales, but what if we had Hive Pop-Up’s in storefronts, at flea markets and street fairs, in community centers and even in homes and schools? We have started looking into how to get a shipping container at Brooklyn’s Dekalb Market - I’d also love to hear your ideas about where and how we pop-up Hive in the streets, where the action is.

Photo Credit: Business Insider

The Hive Pop Up as evangelical revival road show

I believe in Hive! I believe as a network of deeply creative educators, designers, youth, administrators and organizations we can be agents of change and innovation in learning. But we need to testify. We need to be out there changing hearts and minds! I think in this application the Hive Pop-Up is a direct intervention to take what we are thinking about, working on, building and doing to people who can use it. Let’s do Hive Pop-Ups with the NYC DOE, with groups like TASC and PACE. Get Hive and our programs, products and resources to the people who want it and who can carry it forth faster and with more sophistication about their constituencies then we can. Tell me brothers and sisters will you help me Kick Out the Learning Jams (by doing some Hive Pop-Ups?)

Free Speech in the Digital Age – the Hive NYC 1st Amendment Hack Jam

Posted on by
1

Join us this Saturday, May 12th from 1-5pm at the West Side YMCA for our first 1st Amendment Hack Jam!  It’s a free event for tweens and teens to explore and exercise their constitutional rights.

We’ve partnered with The American Constitution Society to extend their Constitution in the Classroom program by taking it out of the classroom and examining at the First Amendment with a web-ified lens to help youth learn more about everything from fair use to expressive conduct in schools.

Every day we hear another story about a student whose statements or actions raise questions about where 1st Amendment rights end and school rules begin.  Can they get in trouble at school for something they Tweet on their own time?  How and where are they expressing their opinions, online and off?

Youth will explore the answers to these questions while also learning how to hack websites, remix videos, express their opinions on controversial topics, and more.

Upon arriving, youth will receive a brief introduction to the available activities and can choose to sample them all or only participate in those that interest them most. They’ll leave having made something, and learned a lot.

  • The LAMP will introduce youth to Fair Use as a 1st Amendment issue. They’ll teach the basics of advertising literacy and video editing via their LAMPlatoon “breaking ads” activity.
  • Common Sense Media will explore when youth felt silenced when expressing an opinion at school, at home?  They’ll have materials to model/illustrate how they can express themselves in non-verbal ways. Think Glogster, Animoto, clay and crayons!
  • World UP will ask youth to voice their opinions on controversial topics, then articulate their statements in 140c or less & tweet it out to the world! DJ SpazeCraft One will also create a “vocal remix” featuring youth voices, part of The Living Remix project.
  • A cadre of youth media makers from People’s Production House will facilitate sprints where youth will work in groups to quickly create the punchiest, poppiest video productions possible!
  • Using Mozilla’s Hackasaurus X-Ray Goggles, youth will experience the power to remix the web!  Rewrite a news article about a topic they’re passionate about, or just tinker with websites to make their opinions known.
  • Global Action Project will be screening youth-produced films that directly addresses educational justice as a right. Youth will engage in a conversation about how to protect high quality public education as a constitutional right.
  • New York Civil Liberties Union will showcase their “school to prison pipeline” interactive online game, and members of the Teen Activist Project will talk about ways students can and cannot engage in expressive conduct in NYC schools.
  • The American Constitution Society will have lawyers on deck to answer questions like, “Can I be punished at school for speaking my mind?” and “Can my school punish me even if I speak online from my home computer?”

To top it off, we’ll have pizza and prizes!

So join us if you can, and if you can’t, follow along with the fun via Tumblr.

Hive NYC’s Top 10 Moments of 2011

Posted on by
1

Here at Hive NYC HQ we aren’t above falling prey to some of the holidays’ most enduring clichés (see our holiday card for proof). So in the spirit of the season may we present to you our Hive NYC Top 10 Moments (events/experiences/stuff…) of 2011!

Honorable Mention: This was one action-packed year for Hive NYC.  For a more extensive run-down of our molecular phase shifts, read this.

10. Hive youth in both New York City and Chicago got their own column on Huffington Post High School!  A new home for all the world to see what our youth are learning and making and thinking. Here are links to the first four stories: Sharon Mizrahi, Matthew Byrd, Dominque James, Tonya Ingram.

9. Hive relocated to the do-it-yourself maker paradise of Gowanus, Brooklyn. Specifically we joined the Brooklyn Creative League, an awesome collaborative work space that caters to non-profits, freelancers and other professional odd balls.

8. Mozilla Executive Director Mark Surman joins our member meet-up at the American Museum of Natural History. Mark shared his vision and reasoning behind Mozilla teaming up with Hive NYC and got inspired by the community and the energy in the room. After the meeting he also joined us for a fun night of socializing and pontificating.

7. Hive NYC invades the Digital Media & Learning Conference. For the second year in a row, Hive NYC brought a strong presence to DML including a demo at the Science Fair, a Hackasaurus workshop, Dave Carroll/Diana Rhoten and a “mediatrician” on a panel about youth and media, and of course Global Kids leading about 8 panels! Hive was represented by members from MOUSE, Eyebeam, Parsons, Global Kids, Bank Street College, NYPL and NYSCI.

6. Earth Day Hack Jam. Teaming up with NYSCI, Hive held its biggest and most successful hack jam centered around themes of Earth Day. Mashing-up Hackasaurus, virtual worlds, digital photography and Sharpies, middle-school youth made some amazing things and taught Hive some valuable lessons that we still follow. Read more about it here.

5. Emoti-Con Hive NYC Youth Committee. This was the first year for Hive to be formally involved in Emoti-Con, a youth media festival run by Global Kids, MOUSE, NYPL and Parsons. While the event was a stand-out moment for us, the highlight was the Hive youth committee that formed to help plan the day, gave Hive advice and helped choose the name Hive NYC! Big thanks to Jess Klein, Barry Joseph, Marc Lesser, Monica Harriss and Michael Foster for their leadership on this.

4. Girls Write Now meet-up. Not only did we get to see GWN’s space and hear about their amazing programs but we welcomed a plethora of new members as the meeting came right after a growth spurt.  We also started an important discussion about what it means to be a member of Hive NYC. See the map of our 38 current members here.

3. Hive NYC participates in the Bring To Light Festival. Partnering with the fine folks that bring you NYC’s version of Nuit Blanche, Hive NYC members City Lore and Urban Word teamed up with youth to remix poetry, visual art, software and performance. Watch the videos of the performances by Hive freelancer Julia Vallera.

2. Hive London Pop-Up at the London Mozilla Festival. An awesome example of what Hive NYC and Mozilla can do together. DreamYard, Radio Rookies, and Institute of Play joined other youth organizations from Chicago, San Francisco and England to help Hive design, manage, and run a two-day youth creation festival that demonstrated the power of a Hive Learning Network. We created, made, remixed, networked, talked, planned and learned from all the participants. The experience also helped us model how we demonstrate and share our process with the world under the guise of the Hive Pop-Up Experience. For a first-hand perspective, check out our former intern Helen Lee’s take on the experience.

1. Winning Editor’s Choice Blue Ribbon for Hive NYC booth at World Maker Faire. For the second year, Hive NYC had a space within World Maker Faire hosted by Hive member NYSCI. This year we decided to start planning early and as a community, as we brought together youth and professionals from Global Kids, MOUSE, DreamYard, Radio Rookies, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Hackasaurus, City Lore, Museum of African Art, Brooklyn Public Library and The Point. This collaboration helped us have a diverse, cohesive, fun and educational…and oh yeah…AWARD WINNING experience! Check out our complete recap of Hive at Maker Faire. 

Thank you to everyone that played a part in these memorable moments.  We look forward to many more in 2012!

Hack jams for youth, by youth

Posted on by
2

Written by Jess Klein, Hackasaurus Design + Learning Lead

The Hive Mozilla Youth Ambassador training theme of the day today was facilitation- aka Hack Jam 101. Although the thought of running an event can be daunting- our team of Mouse youth were up for the challenge. Today was the third session in our training series. It was another session of work that I have not tried out before- but I consider this a prototype for  a more formalized opportunity for youth.

The first thing that we did today was discuss the upcoming hack jams that the MoYo Ambassadors will help facilitate. First, on Monday they will be running a hack jam for their peers at Mouse- and then later in the year they will be helping TASC with several after school programs.

We started the training by reviewing the 5 steps to running a hack jam for youth, which is part of the recently launched Hacktivity Kit.

The five steps guide readers from preparation to facilitation of an event for youth using the Hackasaurus tools.  The team of youth were quick to note that a hack jam- is like a music jam session- where participants could riff off of eachother’s work!

We then reviewed the logistics for the event on Monday. We looked at the event space and came up with several solutions for creating a maker space where participants can work in the “open”.

We also brainstormed and came up with a theme for our event- called “Hacking the Holidays.” Our team quickly noted that we covered a lot of things in our two workshops, so we decided to simplify our hack jam by only covering hacking (not getting into webmaking). We came up with a list of learning objectives for the 2 hour event:

The group then set to work. The first order of business was coming up with a good ice breaker to communicate what we mean when we say “hack”.  I made them play a game that Chloe Varelidi and I modded for the Media, Freedom and the Web festival.  Each participant got 3 cards- a Goal, Mechanic and Concept card. The goal and concept cards were filled out in advance but the youth came up with the concept for the final activity.

They came up with pretty creative solution including a tweet game- where users had to Hack a Tweet and a game where participants were presented with a problem in a photograph and had to edit the photo to in order to save the day. Ultimately- they decided to go with a dance battle game.

We then took some time to come up with an event plan for the jam. We came up with an agenda, and assigned roles:

We then paired  off an practiced talking to each other about the project. I then challenged the to make videos of their pitches on the topic of What is Hackasaurus and Why is it Important to Code.

What is Hackasaurus by Omar and Youssef

Why It Is Important to Code by Zainab and Jose

 

Finally, we walked through everyone’s roles for Monday and talked about what to do when troubleshooting. It was a great day and I know we all are looking forward to their first event on Monday.

Transitioning from Hacking to Webmaking

Posted on by
4
Written by Jess Klein, Hackasaurus Design + Learning Lead


Today was the second HIVE Mozilla Youth Ambassador training at Mouse. Today was focused on making that pivotal move from hacking bits and pieces of the web with the X-Ray Goggles to designing webpages with HTML and style. This was the first time that I have ever lead a followup workshop to the initial “hack jam” type workshops where participants learned about the open web, what we mean by “hacking” and an intro to the Hackasaurus tools. For me this workshop is very important because it moves from the “a ha” moment that many users have when using the googles to look under the hood of a webpage, to the “roll up the sleeves” and get to work phase. Or, as Mimi Ito might say- from messing around to geeking out.


We started out by stretching our content creation muscles with the Superhero Design Challenge. Participants were asked to look back at the “I think X makes the web special” and the “I think that X makes the web difficult to use” brainstorms that we did in session 1. They chose one aspect of the web to defend or compete against if they were a Superhero of the Open Web. They then used this as the basis for creating  a short web- ready biography for their fictional superhero of the open web. We discussed what makes a good bio as well as what makes for good writing on the web.

The youth presented their stories:

“Captain  Super wall-  he has the power to throw fire balls at villains how try to cross the wall. A long time ago in a far school named cyber squad. were super wall a student was elected to go visit one of the most advanced technology in the hold city, but something when wrong in it’s visit. he touched  one of the controllers and he  when into  cyber world. it took him to  firewall city. where his mission is to let good information go in and burn bad things. “- by Jose

Then, they paired up and created an arch nemesis for their partner’s superhero. Here is Captain Super Wall’s arch nemesis, Title Wave:

“Title Wave sends title waves of info that is not needed does that because he thinks all info is good and also thinks that all info should have equal rights ” – by Youssef

Now that they had bios, they were ready for some publicity! They went into online news organization sites and remixed the pages to include stories of their characters saving the day, or ruining the day as it were.   The youth had a great time taking photos with Photobooth on their computers and doing post production and image manipulation in Aviary:

They remixed the html and style with the X- Ray Goggles and presented their projects and talked a bit about how they trouble shooted problems with the coding.

We then discussed the various components that make up a webpage, including:  HTML, CSS, graphic assets and text content and reviewed that the combination of an opening tag and its corresponding closing tag and the content in between is called an element. 

The final challenge for this workshop was to make an instructional “how to” webpage from a template- without the goggles. In order to do this, we all came up with things that we we experts at- we had a peanut butter and jelly maker, a hand turkey illustrator, a good music connoisseur!  I gave everyone a crash course in web DESIGN. We talked about the importance in identifying a user and designed information architecture as well as wireframes for all of the sites.

Participants used a prototype that Atul Varma and I worked on as a spin off of the Hackbook that Anna Debenham created to help users craft webpages from templates.

In the end, everyone made the “how to” pages and we all critiqued the structure, style and design of each presenters work.

 How to Sleep

Overall the workshop was a  success – we user tested old and new tools as well as curriculum and workshop participants came a way with 2 webpages that they made in a stretch of 4 hours!

Next Up:  How to Run a Hack Jam on Friday.