As I’ve detailed throughout this blog I’ve spent a lot of time writing, revising, and helping to promote the use of the Web Literacy standard/map/initiative. After Doug Belshaw left Mozilla, I was concerned with the future of the web literacy work.

Recently Doug wrote about a post by Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation. In the post, Mark provides some insight into the future of Mozilla’s definition of web literacy.

It’s a bit hard to glean from the different posts and links, but it appears that the plan includes building up the Mozilla Learning work that was released at the end of 2014. The web literacy skills and competencies will become the focus of the work in Mozilla Learning.

It also appears that Mark, Laura de Reynal and others have reviewed the current version of the web literacy map and sought out feedback from select outsiders to identify the future of the map. One of the largest changes is to move from Explore, Build, Connect to Read, Write, Participate.

My own thoughts on this transition have vacillated during the last six months working on the web literacy calls. I’m in support of this change, it serves to clarify the role of the framework. It also creates a parallel between the web literacies and more traditional forms of literacy. I support this change, although in the responses we received from the presentations at LRA not everyone agreed.

I’m excited that the web literacy initiative seems to be moving forward. Once again, it appears that much of this work moving forward will be a bit veiled. A Web Literacy Working Group has been developed and meeting to advance the web literacy map to a brandable product. Marc Lesser has been appointed as a bridge to the previous working groups. I look forward to seeing what comes next and hopefully helping out again.

 

Cover flickr photo by Astro Guy http://flickr.com/photos/astroguy/3931250442 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license