Appropriate Technologies for Developing Communities
This is an informal group dedicated to understanding the potential use of information technologies for enabling communities in the developing world as well as indigenous and other emerging communities in the western world. This is not meant to be confused with the interest in online communities or communities of educators, etc - which is also of great interest. But here we are concerned with appropriate technologies that respond to the often low-tech settings, potentially illiterate users, and very challenging circumstances of developing settings.
An important goal is to avoid the easy mistake of trying to simply "translate" our existing tools and materials for use by these communities. That's not what they want or what they need. Even the method of "participatory design" brings with it a supposition that the developer comes from the outside of the community. We may well decide that only innovations that grow from within the communities are truly appropriate.
below, we offer a growing bibliography, as well as some helpful categories of review and discussion, and some interesting links to projects that may be relevant to this challenging area of work
ATDC topic areas
Information Technologies and Aboriginal Health Education - Reading course by Tracey Wallace, Spring 2007
Technology and Education in Developing Settings - Reading course with Arif Anwar and Christina Parker
ATDC activities
[Conferences]
[Journals]
Grant proposals
Research collaborations
Resources
ATDC Links to interesting projects
ATDC Bibliography
Metadata (please don't edit below here...)
| Overview | Appropriate Technologies for Developing Communities - this is an informal group that explores the potential for information technology to meaningfully contribute to the problems of communities in the developing world |
|---|
