Mozilla and the Chattanooga Public Library are joining forces in a worldwide celebration of web literacy, bringing digital enthusiasts from Tennessee and around the world together for ‘Maker Parties’ that place internet learning and making at the center of 21st-century citizenship.
“It’s about more than coding,” said Mozilla Executive Director Mark Surman. “It is a great call to arms that puts the world’s users at the center of the web. Success in the 21st century depends on web literacy – and on making the web what we all want it to be.”
This year’s Maker Party cycle, an annual 60-day blitz of volunteer-run events in hundreds of cities around the world, is part of the Mozilla Webmaker project dedicated to teaching web literacy as the educational background needed for success anywhere today.
In mid July, leaders of Mozilla’s local Hive Chattanooga attended a Maker Party event at the Bronx Library Center in New York.
There they were able to share the work of the Chattanooga Public Library and local Gigabit Community Fund project Hyperaudio with the 600+ middle school students in attendance. Now, Hive CHA is bringing this experience back home to Chattanooga through a Maker Party at the Chattanooga Public Library on Saturday.
From 12-3 p.m., DEV DEV code camp graduates and educators from across the region will be on hand to help participants get started building, exploring, and creating on the web. Youth, parents, educators, and makers of all ages are invited to participate in hands-on activities from the Library, the Creative Discovery Museum, Girls Inc., Maker Faire Chattanooga, and many other local partners. Attendees will leave with new web literacy skills, information about digitally-focused after school programs for the coming school year, and resources to keep exploring the web.
The 2014 Mozilla Maker Party season, running from July 15 to Sept. 15, and now in its third year, brings web users of all nationalities, genders, ages and economic means together at nearly 2,000 events in over 300 cities to teach and learn the web. Anyone, anywhere can engage in creating the future mechanics, culture and global citizenship of the internet by finding a local Maker Party event on
the Webmaker website today.