Digital Natives: Teens, Tweens, & Digital Media: Mozilla Kicks Off The Summer Code Party

This weekend the Mozilla Foundation began their Summer Code Party with a bang, holding more than 125 events all over the world to teach people how to make things for the web.

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Filed by Sarah Jackson

Mozilla’s new Webmaker tools, which launched earlier this summer, are designed to “help people everywhere make, learn and play using the open building blocks of the web.” Webmaker includes authoring tools and software like Popcorn, Thimble, Hackasaurus, along with community efforts like Hive NYC.

More than 1000 people participated from India to San Francisco to the Philippines. Writing on his blog, Mozilla Foundation’s Matt Thompson has more:

In Toronto, they made digital animations and robot invasion videos. In Nigeria, novice webmakers created their first-ever web pages. Santiago created tools for citizen journalists, Bucharest made mobile apps, and Dublin used Popcorn to annotate their favorite skateboard videos. In Pune, India, they made web pages about environmentalism, and in Guadalajara they built a website for a school. … And that’s just the opening weekend.

At least 400 other events are already planned for the rest of the summer, which will culminate in a wrap-up event and showcase on Sept. 23.

The Code Party is a collaboration with a host of other organizations including Creative Commons and Code for America. Check out Mozilla’s Tumbler page. It’s great fun to look through the photos of young programmers and novices around the globe tinkering with digital tools.

You can participate by joining a Webmaker event near you or by hosting your own. They are also hosting regular Tuesday webmaker community phone calls. These conference calls are open to everyone interested in learning how to make things for the web to share ideas, get feedback and keep the momentum going. The next call is scheduled for June 26 at 11 am EST.

And, if you’re in the New York City Area you can join Hive NYC, Mozilla, Tumblr, Gigantic Mechanic, Institute of Play, and the People’s Production House Pop Squad June 30 for a Summer Code Party event for educators and teens. Anyone who has an interest in becoming a webmaker is invited. Designers and engineers will lead activities and participants will have a chance to try out new digital tools and make their own. It’s free. RSVP here.

For more on the Webmaker tools and to see Mozilla’s Hackasaurus project in action watch “Using Goggles to Change Google: Teens Learn the Power of Programming at Mozilla’s Hackasaurus.”