Design Camp for Mozilla Jetpack

This week, I’m in beautiful Austin, Texas with BBQ, cowboy hats and more live music than you can shake a stick at. Aspiration is here co-organizing Mozilla‘s Jetpack for Learning Design Camp, an event bringing together finalists who have developed open education-related add-ons for Firefox using Mozilla’s new “Jetpack” framework. “Jetpack”+ “Mozilla”+ “add-on”+ “open education” = Lots of weird jargon. These terms refer to a program called Jetpack that Mozilla, the people who have brought us such wonderful tools as Firefox and Thunderbird have put together to enable anyone who has basic web development skills (HTML, CSS and Javascript) to produce “powerful” add-ons for Firefox. The participants at this Design Camp have all produced add-ons using Jetpack that focus on Open Education.

The Design Camp Projects

The following is a list of the participating projects at the Design Camp. They are still in development so we didn’t want to create a functioning toolbox out of them but definitely check them out because there is some innovative stuff going on with regards to education through the open web.

• Clozefox
  An extension that auto-generates multiple choice and fill-in exercises for language learners, turning any webpage into an interactive, educational and fun language learning resource.
• Cohere
  An extension through which users can collaboratively annotate the web while creating semantic connections between annotations and discussing them with other users online.
• Expression Widgets
  An extension for expressing thoughts while collaboratively creating/capturing/modifying content like text, images and even mathematical formulas.
• HooverNotes
  An extension designed to allow the user to annotate the web like one annotates a book, leaving comments, highlighting and collecting bits of web pages or a collection of pages.
• LineHive
  An extension that allows users to group webpages and sites into a timeline that is then accessible as a single unit, allowing people to create paths throughout the internet in thoughtful ways

Design Camp Links

Be sure to check out these links if you’re interested in the work that’s going on here at the design camp:

• Mozilla Jetpack for Learning – Design Camp Wiki
• Jetpack For Learning Social Media Dashboard
• Jetpack for Learning Main Challenge Page
• Event Hashtag: #jet4learning
• Langladder
  An extension aimed at language learners that integrates language exercises and information into everyday activities (e.g. email, social networking and blogs) on the web.
• MUPPLE
  An extension that allows you to record your web activity, allowing users to save and share best practices and experiences.
• NetDetective
  An extension aimed at 9-11 year olds, NetDetective is a game that shows users how to find information on the internet by solving detective cases.
• Rubrick
  An extension that allows users to create, share and reuse rubrics for teaching, giving access to both teachers and students.
• StudyTroll
  An extension that is a game and educational tool that gives users an easy way to keep on top of learning a specific subject by reminding them about the subject and randomly quizzing the user inside the browser.

What are your thoughts on Open Education? What implications are there for nonprofits?