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Participating on the Web

Posted over 4 years ago by Andy Lechlak

Participating on the open web includes connecting with the communities that share, build, and sustain meaningful content online. A healthy online community requires knowledge of how to create, publish and link content, and an understanding of security in order to keep content, identity, and systems safe. https://learning.mozilla.org/en-US/web-literacy/participate/

When we talk about participating on the web we might think about email or Facebook and having conversation with friends, families, and randos (aka random people). While that is part of connecting, there is so much more to participating on the web (safely).

CC-BY 4.0 Mozilla

When we designed our training we knew we wanted security to be part of the conversation at a basic and advanced level. After careful thought, we broke the training up into a totally focused security and protection section. The first part we discussed was about passwords and how to make a good password. The second part revolved around a Firefox tool called Lightbeam that shows how websites track visitors.

Lightbeam is a Firefox add-on that uses interactive visualizations to show you the first and third party sites you interact with on the Web. As you browse, Lightbeam reveals the full depth of the Web today, including parts that are not transparent to the average user. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/...

CC-BY 4.0 Mozilla

These are all great tools, but one piece of participate we haven't covered in depth (because Librarians get a ton of this during their Masters program) is Open Licensing and Copyright. There is a pre-done curriculum, Fair Use Free-for-All, that covers the basics and helps the web user understand when, where, and how to give credit.

These three classes and tools really help staff in gathering a full picture of participation around web literacy. We want people to become healthy internet citizens that help shape the internet rather than just consume it.