Open Source and Web Literacy

Mozilla open web project is meant to keep web source code open and accessible to the public. This is a meaningful goal and one that has been increasingly embraced as necessary aspect of technological innovation. Besides ensuring greater collective application of skills it also advocates for online "equality" of sorts. One of their key messages can be found in this quote from their website:

Mozilla’s work is underpinned by a philosophy that we learn best through doing and making. While our thinking is influenced and informed by the works of academics in related fields, we’re interested in practical action. We're focused on helping people become more sophisticated in writing the web, participating in communities that explore web literacy and become advocates for the value and need for an open web.

I am particularly interested in the web literacy aspect of Mozilla's project as it has outlined important aspects of learning in the digital age. They have even incorporated web literacy into the 21st Century skillset which has been identified as the necessary skills students will need to enter the ever changing and increasingly technological work force. The visual they have created shows various aspects of the skillset as it relates to web literacy.

We could ask questions such as "Should all students learn basic coding as it is the new language of the future?" and "What aspects of the internet will be vital for all students to have at least a rudimentary understanding of?" These questions and debates have been happening as we are entering into a greater awareness of how education will need to adapt to the change in basic infrastructure of our connected society.

The issue is that we are still evolving and redefining our technological infrastructure, and it's uncertain how far the open-source ideology will extend or if it will be reshaped in the future. If we view coding as we do literacy and languages, we begin to see the critical importance of transparency and accessibility. Historically, when most people were unable to read or write, they were dependent on "keepers of wisdom" to interpret spiritual texts or laws. To avoid a similar imbalance in the digital age, we must establish safeguards to ensure that information is accessible to everyone, driven by curiosity and necessity, rather than restricted by privilege. After all, knowledge is power.