Web literacy club interviewsData summaries based on your suggestions

Participant demographics

• Technology (IT, designer, developer) • Education (K-12 schools, afterschool programs) • Public institutions (libraries) • Mixture of individual programs and orgs that represent large

numbers of programs

Background

• The majority of the 38 interview participants are in North America. Participants are also located in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and Zealandia.

Geography

Program profiles

• Many existing programs serve elementary, middle school, high school age youth, and a significant number of programs also serve adults and educators.

• Most of these programs are sign-up, and most meet regularly for a finite period of time.

• Most programs rated the web literacy level of both their youth and adult participants as "beginner" or “basic".

My program is….

Program engagement

• Learning cohesive, connected, and meaningful skills; • Incentives such as competition or awards, badges; • Fun activities adapted in a modular way, for different skill levels

and participants, using relevant content; • Offering the option to share/adapt/network together, both in-

person and online.

In your experiences, successful program engagement has been a combination of…

Your feedback on web literacy club visions and approaches

Main “strengths” of the web literacy club approach

• I am already organizing a club of my own, and could use new curriculum and/or help.

• “I already run two programmes trying to share technology and hardware in Argentina. But I never have time, because I do all of this outside of my job. I'd love help, resources and community to do it with."

• It's a great time to do this. • "People are excited about Webmaker here, but they don’t have the agenda or paths for what’s next."

• I like the term "club". • "When I hear 'club', I think of something that is not a class. Sounds good, fun and exciting. I also think

of a team."

Main “challenges” of the web literacy club approach

• There are already other similar technology clubs in my region. • “I already lead a club managed by Coder Dojo, Code Club, Ladies Learning Code or another local technology

organization."

• It will be hard to keep me/my network engaged. • “The real tricky part is finding committed volunteers who have both the skills and staying power -- it's easy to

get university students, but they come and go."

• I don't like the term "club". • "The name club can work, but because all after-school clubs are already clubs, you also need a catchy name,

like Code Scouts, Coder Dojo or STEM Meetup."

• I am confused about this versus other Webmaker programmes. • “I wonder if local communities that are sustainable will maybe rush to clubs and get distracted."

Suggestions for “sustaining” the web literacy club approach

• Work directly with schools. • Allow for different kinds of curriculum for different

learning styles. • Be intentional about timing. Meeting often, and for

a shorter time, is better. • Partner with others. Don't make it seem like you're

replacing their work.

Suggestions regarding tech, tools and curriculum

• We want modular curriculum that's flexible for our needs. • The use of new tools (ie Github) can be daunting. Peer

learning opportunities and how-tos are important. • The front-end new media 'look' of Teaching Kits works well. • We need printable resources that work online and offline. • The tone of curriculum -- who it’s worded for -- matters. • Make sure the Web Literacy Map is localized for key regions

before we use it, and easy for beginners to understand.

Suggestions regarding professional development

• It's crucial! • Coaching is key. Good mentoring is a critical piece

in the process of being given new resources. • Access to new opportunities and different ways to

do things (such as in-person trainings, webinars, videos, tutorials and social media conversations) are also very valuable.

Testing and next steps

• Everyone is willing to jump in and get involved. • We also got a great range of specific responses

regarding when and where different orgs could test and contribute to curriculum development.

• Thank you all for your thoughtful responses — we really enjoyed the conversations. Let’s get started!