Web Literacy Standard Announced By Mozilla

An anonymous reader writes "Doug Belshaw and Carla Casilli, along with a community of stakeholders, have been working on a specification of skills needed for web literacy. Doug report that Brett Gaylor and Chris Lawrence announced version 1.0 of the spec. In a nutshell it's described as 'A map of the territory for the skills and competencies Mozilla and community think are important to get better at to more effectively read, write & participate on the Web.' Usages include writing curricula influenced by it, and issuing Open Badges that align with it (using the 'alignment' metadata field). Doug also calls for help with localization of the spec into other languages."

Comments

Huh?

[mythosaz]

I can't be the only one confused by this article summary. It's going to take an hour of reading Wikipedia to figure it out...

Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

This is utterly pointless crap. No one needs web literacy merit badges. My 70-year-old grandmother gets around just fine on the net without some crummy scout badge. Kids surf the net with ease before they learn not to drink bleach. No one needs net training; it's a false demand created by academics who don't understand that there are more pressing first-world problems to solve, like teaching people to distinguish between an oak and a holm oak.

Re:Pointless

[psithurism]

I'm having trouble figuring out their interface and what all is available in their double tabbed page layout. My degree in CompSci doesn't seem to be helping, but that makes sense, because before I got lost, I think it said something about credentials and experience being irrelevant.

I think what they are trying to do is design a standard for web competency and then let you "learn anywhere," e.i. let someone else figure out how to teach you these things and then you can come back and use their page creation apps appropriately.

Re:Pointless

[theshowmecanuck]

Soon you won't be able to get a job unless you are Firefox Web Certified. HR managers are going to love this. It will make their job a lot easier.

4chan badge

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants to show off having earned their 4chan badge?

Re:4chan badge

[narcc]

What do I do if I I see someone wearing a 4chan badge? Should I call the police?

I feel like I should call the police.

Simple Web Literacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing not to visit sites with "goatse" in the url is literacy enough.

Re:Simple Web Literacy

[techno-vampire]

Oh, I don't know. The first time you click on a goatse link can be an eye opening experience. Or, of course, if your tastes don't run that way, an eye closing experience. In either case, it will probably be an experience you'll never forget, even if you want to.

RMS will fail to make the grade

[fatphil]

So would I, I'm sure. It'll be some modeish clap-trap that many greybeards will have rejected as not sufficiently better than what we were doing before 99% of the current internet population had even heard of the net.

Know how to say HELO, or GOMFL!

Want people to know what they're doing online?

[sootman]

Step 1: ALWAYS SHOW THE FUCKING STATUS BAR! (Firefox, Safari.) And make it the whole width of the window. (Chrome) And it should do exactly ONE thing: show the exact, complete URL of a link you're hovering over.

That is all.

Actually, wait, it isn't. Step 2: ALWAYS SHOW THE ENTIRE URL IN THE URL BAR -- INCLUDING the protocol and all the other ugly bits. In one color text. Again, as much as the width of the window will allow you to see. MAYBE put the main domain in bold so it looks like www.bankofamerica.ihaxxoryou.com/give/me/your/money. But let me turn that off if I know what I'm doing.

Re:Want people to know what they're doing online?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm reading Slashdot?! How did that happen I don't even.