Help us get local with web literacy

We’ve kicked off an effort to localize our Web Literacy Basics I curriculum and we need your help!

There’s increasing interest in starting Mozilla Clubs and teaching web literacy skills in communities around the globe, but our current curricular modules are only available in English. We know this a blocker for many and we are committed to finding and building easier ways for people to join in and help us translate this content into their local language.

Photo Credit:Laura de Reynal

We’re starting with Web Literacy Basics I, a great beginner module that includes six activities focused on teaching the basics of reading, writing and participating on the Web. Our hope is have this module translated into at as many other languages as possible by the end of 2015! India has shown a huge interest in starting Mozilla clubs and it would be great if we, as a community, could help translate this into as many Indian languages as possible. Language should not be a barrier for achieving Universal Web literacy.

Localizing curriculum is more than just translating the language–in some cases there is also a need to adapt content for cultural context. To truly engage people in the learning process, curriculum should have relevance to local conditions and environments. For example, a Kraken might not really make sense in India. However, using a Yeti would make it easier for people to relate to, in India. The whole idea is not just to translate the content, but to make it in a way that people from different regions are able to relate to it.

While much of our current content has been tested and piloted in different learning contexts–from classrooms and libraries to after school clubs and community gatherings–our hope is to be able to offer truly localized curriculum that meets learners where they are. India has 22 official languages and many more unofficial languages spoken throughout the country. We hope to work closely with the localization community in order to make our curriculum more accessible to people in their own language. To that end, we’re looking for volunteers who have experience with translation as well as with mentoring and teaching others.

Currently, this content lives in HTML files, however we’ve created a simple way to translate Web Literacy Basics I using markdown. It utilizes GitHub Issues, but don’t fear! The process is easy even for first-time GitHub users, and it’s a great way to get your feet wet with this popular, Web-based code- and project-management service. Ultimately all translated activities will end up looking official like this  and be added to teach.mozilla.org/activities.

How-to translate Web Literacy Basics I

1. Visit the “Source Code” link for each activity below – there are two files to translate for each activity
2. Click the “activity data” folder, then the “content” folder, to access the activity.md and aside.md files inside
3. Use your favorite text editor to translate the content
4. Create a new issue in the desired repository with a title such as: Localization of aside.md into Portuguese
5. Paste in your translated content
6. Repeat the same process and create a new issue for the translation of activity.md file as well
7. Then we’ll handle the rest! We’ll do a quick review, and if all looks good, will get it posted to teach.mozilla.org/activities where it will ultimately look like this

Activity links

• Kraken The Code Source Code
• Ping Kong Source Code
• Hack the News Source Code
• HTML Puzzle Boxes Source Code
• Web Chef Source Code
• Story of Us Source Code

For more experienced GitHub users, you can find a separate set of instructions in the readme files for each activity repository above.

[vimeo 144075032 w=500 h=281]

We encourage anyone and everyone to join us in this effort, so please help spread the word!

You can feel free to ask any questions, or share feedback or requests for assistance in our Discourse forum.

Thanks in advance for helping us bring important web literacy skills to more communities. We are incredibly appreciative of your contributions!

This post is a remixed version of the one on webmaker blog. Credits to Lainie Decoursy