Vision
- What we're building. Why. How it fits into the overall picture.
Goals
- Improve impact of — and value to — Mozilla mentor networks. Dramatically increase number of mentors by
- adding value to established mentors teaching in external contexts, and
- adding online mentoring in product (product and mentor teams)
- Grow our ground game. Sustain and grow Hive Learning Networks and launch Webmaker Clubs to grow our ground game.
- [ Quality of teaching and learning ?] Is there a goal around quality of learning? Quality of teaching?
Before & After
- Before. Where do we stand now?
- After. What this will look like in Dec 2015?
Metrics
- Ground game. Sustain and grow Hive Learning Networks. Launch Webmaker Clubs to grow ground game.
- Increase # of learning events by [? x ?]% each month starting in Q2. (Baseline = 250/month)
- Quality of learning
- 10% of MEU acquire a relevant badge
- Quality of teaching. Badges to mentors and educators who demonstrate ability to teach effectively and creatively
- Increase # of Webmaker and Hive educator badges by [? x ?]% each month starting in Q2. (Baseline = 200/month)
- Impact. Dramatically increase number of mentors. Add value to established mentors teaching in external contexts. Add online mentoring in product. (Product + Mentor Teams)
- Product team: Increase % of users “mentoring” within Webmaker to 4% of MAU. (Baseline = 0.57%)
- Mentor team: ___
Key Initiatives
- Create curriculum and materials to help people mentor and teach better (value).
- Recruit more partners to increase reach and scope of networks (impact).
- Add more Hive cities, including in Asia and Africa (value and impact).
- Evolve Maker Party into year-round activity through Webmaker Clubs (impact).
- Build on 2014 to improve and maintain hubs for teaching and learning (value and impact)
- webmaker.org- Sharpen and consolidate education targeted content via teach.webmaker.org
- Hive Community building- empower more people to start Hive Learning Communities via documentation and support (hivelearningnetworks.org)
- Training- Expand and improve both online and in-person trainings
Hive Networks
Target market: advanced teacher and mentor individuals and organizations
Context:
- Mozilla runs or helps grow a series of ‘Hive Learning Networks’ in 15 cities at various stages of development with local communities of teachers, mentors, schools, libraries, museums, etc. committed to promoting web literacy and new approaches to learning. The teachers and mentors in these networks work together to offer innovative programs for youth across their city.
- Mozilla currently runs Hive networks in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Chattanooga and Kansas City. Nascent networks are emerging in the U.K., Bangalore, Seattle and San Francisco. There are also Hive networks not operated directly by Mozilla but which are a part of the global network.
Launch Hive Global. In 2015, we will officially launch Hive Global as a team that helps to grow these initiatives. This group will:
- Grow the number of official Hive cities from 15 to 25, with a specific mandate to grow in Asia and Africa (Bangalore and Mombasa).
- Support MacArthur Foundation Cities of Learning initiative, getting teachers and mentors involved in this work via establishment of credentials that translate into career and college readiness through civic partnerships.
- Set up a Hive Lab model which gets teachers and mentors to participate in the development of digital and web literacy tools and curriculum.
- Develop a set of Hive badges to recognize and motivate mentors.
- Document the Hive model so it is easy for interested groups to start testing out Hive ideas in new cities.
Build how Hive sets the table for Webmaker people, product and programs to thrive within while also being the pioneers in recruiting new cities to join Hive. We have dynamic examples of both, we need to learn from them and have that become more commonplace. Examples:
- Hive Pittsburgh launched Digital Corps that trains people to teach webmaking throughout the city
- Hive Bangalore used webmaker clubs as a way to draw interest from other partners and groups on the idea for a broader digital literacy network
Connect more deeply with existing Mozilla and Mozilla-aligned networks that have plans for linking mentor/learning communities like Open Science, Policy and ReMo to bridge networks and grow individual and organizational capacity
Mentor Community
- Target market: professional educators and advanced mentors.
- In 2014, we will have built a community of ~10k teachers and mentors to develop, deliver and promote Webmaker. In 2015, we need to provide more structure and value to these ‘lead users’.
- At a core, we will: a) evolve Maker Party into a year round Webmaker Clubs program; b) continue to improve curriculum increase the value of what they teach; c) and offer Mozilla ‘badges’ that recognize the best and most talented mentors.
- As a part of our ‘radical participation’ plan, we will build formal channels that turn this community into a ‘lab’ that helps develop and test the next generation of Webmaker software and content. Deep integration with broader digital mentor network
- On a platform level, we will continue to use and expand webmaker.org as a hub for our teacher and mentor audience. The current side will need to be shored up by a) better P2P communications tools / usage and b) better email communication and recognition to mentors. We will also encourage members of this network to participate in online mentoring in the Webmaker App.
Milestones
- (to come)
Key Collaborations / Dependencies
Hive
- Software: depends on active integration between Hive Labs, webmaker mentors and Webmaker Product teams, for
- a) labs concept to work and
- b) Webmaker software. To benefit from feedback from mentors / educators in Hive networks.
- Webmaker.org: need better navigation, discoverability and intentionality on webmaker.org (or related properties) to reap the outcomes we want/need. Same for badges.
- Marketing: better integration with overall Webmaker marketing to tell the network/horizontal story of Mozilla’s work. (Building conditions for digital literacy to thrive through teaching and learning. And the programmatic/vertical thrust of webmaking via tools, curriculum and clubs, improving direct skills.)
- Fundraising: need to secure additional funding for 2015+. $8M is already in the pipeline from MacArthur and NSF. Also, chance to expand Hives in Africa via Mastercard in late 2015. What else?
- Continued growth of flagship Hive in NYC through three more identified funders: Pinkerton, Butler and the NYC Mayor’s funds
- Taking over stewardship of Hive Bay Area opens up diverse, local and relevant funding opportunities
- Building non-London based Hive communities in the U.K. (Kent, Manchester) through NESTA and other local funders
- Partnerships: In established Hive cities, we'll increase partnership with other networks, government bodies and providers
- Mozilla Developer Network: depends on how we better document and support pathways for entry-level developers/learner. And how we partner to guide advanced developers with interest in mentoring into the right networks.
- Open Science, Policy and News: Depends on the cross-section of aligned goals, then planning on how to work on these programs together. Examples: Better linking organizations/institutions involved in multiple programs (e.g., libraries)
- ReMo: Identify and work with reps drawn to webmaker/hive as a brand, but also for broader geo-located community-building around teaching and learning in digital literacy.
Mentors
- Software: depends on improved CRM for contributor management / email marketing. Needs to be a Mozilla-wide effort to make this better in 2015. Depends on MoFo product team for improvements to webmaker.org, including more on badges and in-platform mentoring.
- Marketing: depends on collaboration with MoCo engagement and others to running summer campaign (Maker Party+).
- Partnerships: depends partners for the growth and health of the network. Key partners in 2015 are: Coder Dojo, Digital Opportunity Trust and Hive (while hive is often not an external partner it is a large conduit and management service to large partnership base and needs to be relied on as such)
- Fundraising: needs some level of outside funding, including replacement of the $500k MacArthur funding that has gone into Maker Party for the last two years.
- Mentor Network team: depends on collaborating and working closely with staff working on broader digital literacy network activation for cultivation of new mentors, markets and programs.