How can community computing positively impact:
the support necessary to sustain a community and the reflection necessary to evolve and
grow a community (and its members)?
Membership--members have a feeling of belonging;
Influence--members have a sense that the group matters;
Fulfillment--the association must be rewarding for its members; and
Emotional connection--in particular, a shared history.
(from McMillian and Chaves)
Computing can change oe's relationship to community by enabling new forms, by
analyzing discourse, and by visualizing (and reflecting upon) community practices.
Community can change one's relationship to computing and enable new opportunities for collective
problem solving.
SilverStringers is a community-centric approach to news coverage and presentaion, tapping into the
strength of the older generation to develop techniques for th enext generation coverage
of cities and towns. Persons over the age of 60 have unparalleled wisdom about the communities where
they have lived and worked.
Walter Bender and Jack Driscoll
The social organization of The Junior Journal is very different from that of The Melrose
Mirror. Since the participants are scattered around the world, they conduct all the logistical
planning and organizing of new issues entirely in an on-lone forum.
Brian Smith and Jack Driscoll
The Future of Learning group subscribes to a theiry of emergent design that takes best advantage of the
“intelligence in the leaves” and hence we encourage communities to build their own solutions from
a growing collection of distributed knowledge-creation and discource-analysis tools and activities.
Dr. David Cavallo and Seymour Papert
Unwiring the World: Your location no longer limits your ability communicate. From anywhere in the world--mountain,
jungle, or city--you can now telephone, email, and web-browse using a pocket-sized, battery-powered
wireless communicator whose components cost only a few dozen dollars.
Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland
The Computer Clubhouse, a worldwide network of after-school learning centers, focuses on youth from
underserved communities who whould not otherewise have access to technological tools and activities. Clubhouse
members design their own animations, robots, videogames, etc.
Prof. Mitchel Resnick
Community
Computing