Prairienet2community technology resources

Prairienet Community Technology Center Studio

This website is a Prairienet research and design concept demonstration (in other words it is not an active project), intended to supplement an iLabs inquiry unit that took place in the Spring of 2009. Its purpose was to help students design, implement and evaluate new programs that could have aided in the development of a new Prairienet Community Media Lab. It ran in parallel to several student's independent studies Spring 2009 and continued into the summer. The main prototype research projects were as follows:

• Milo, a Linux-based technical resource and information management software
• Online Technology Training Tutorials and Resources, inlcuding:
  • A Guide to setting up free websites
  • How to manage a website with Wordpress
  • A general introduction to computers
  • Introduction to using Windows XP (and managing files in XP)
  • Introduction to the Internet (and using web browsers)
• Storytelling in [Stop] Motion, a digital literacy storytelling workshop for primary school children

Community Informatics?

Community Informatics in an area of research, practice and activism dedicated to providing communities (neighborhoods, towns, virtual groups) with the means (skills, resources, relationships) to address community-defined needs (education, jobs, health, archiving community history, and more). These means are enabled by (or related to) information technologies, or in some broader interpretations, information processes.

This website was created as a demonstration of student work with the Community Informatics Initiative, a teaching and resource center at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.