I’m volunteering at the Mozilla Festival in London on November 4th to the 6th. I’m pretty excited about it. I had a lot of fun last year, learned a lot of interesting tidbits, and met some wonderful, awesome, fantastic, strange people. We brainstormed. We talked. We made some neat things, had some unique conversations, and developed connections that led to some productive partnerships.
A few days ago someone asked me “Which project will you be attaching your big brain to this year?” Firstly, my brain is normal sized, as far as I know. Secondly, I have no idea. I’ve been looking through the design challenges and learning labs and am thinking I should do drive-bys. There’s so many interesting things happening, I can’t commit. And there will be space for impromptu sessions, so how can I commit?
Here are the things I’m overly excited about:
- Seeing/Meeting people I’ve gotten to know via ICT (and IRL) over the last year. Really, I know some lovely, engaged movers and shakers, and I’m looking forward to picking their brains.
- The Science Fair. The science fair is going to be a good time. I have a personal/professional relationship to a few of the organizations on that list, and I’m eager to hear about their new projects and programs. I’m also looking forward to meeting people associated with some of the projects I’ve been following over the past year.
- These design challenges:
- Games that rock the browser – Did I mention I’m a gamer?
- Passing Notes in Class: Making educational video a social experience – I’ve had a couple of discussions lately with educators who are less than excited about the integration of new media into their classrooms. A lot of them have said that video doesn’t give them the ability to engage. Part of the problem is the missing skill set a lot of teachers are faced with (and the lack of funding to acquire those skills). But they also complain about “one way traffic”. I’m quite interested in how we can use new media to create innovative learning experiences, and I think video is a big piece. I’m interested to hear the discussions that will happen in this space and to bounce around some ideas.
- Webmaking with Hackasaurus: How can we teach the world to hack? – I’ve been observing Hackasaurus, and I think that teaching HTML and CSS should be standard. Finding ways to engage kids with things they like while giving them introductions into basic web technologies is valuable, I’m going to enjoy hanging out with Atul and Jess.
- These Learning Labs:
- Knight-Mozilla Learning Lab: New thinking about software, journalism and news – I participated in the Learning Lab over the summer, and it blew my mind. So many smart people, so many interesting ideas, such a beautiful sense of collaboration. I also hung out at Betahaus for a day during Hacktoberfest. It was a great experience watching the participants move around. I’m looking forward to seeing the people I met over the summer and in Berlin, and hearing about what they accomplished since then.
- Technologies for Anonymization: How to Use the SecureSmartCam – I’m just interested in subversion in general.
- Beginning Development for HTML5 Games – I haven’t made an HTML5 game yet. I have some ideas though, so maybe sitting in on this learning lab will inspire me to actually follow through with one of them.
- The Human APIs and Fireside Chats are also on the list of things to poke a stick at.
Really, three days isn’t enough time. If you aren’t going, you should be. We’re going to make stuff. It’s going to be fun.
Related articles
- Response to Mozilla as teacher (zythepsary.com)
- Hacking The Web With Interactive Stories (toolness.com)
- Volunteering at the Mozilla Festival 2011 (digitalbydefault.com)
