Research Projects
Explain affiliation with CII, explain areas of interest, intentions for future research.
For the 2008-2009 academic year I'm working with the Community Informatics Initiative IMLS grant that is centered around expanding and evaluating the CI core curriculum and program. As such most of my work-related research this semester won't show up on this site, but I may place up a version of a final report.
- Sao Tome Map Project - Fall 2009
- Pairienet2: Technology Training Reborn - Fall 2008 through Spring 2009
- The Rantoul Public Library: History and Storytelling in [Stop] Motion - Fall 2008 through Spring 2009
- Community Engagement, the mini documentary - Fall 2008
- Community Informatics Multimedia Archive (CIMA) - Summer 2008
- eBlack Illinois: African American Communities and Library Resources in Illinois - Spring & Summer 2008
Papers, Posters and Presentations
Papers
- Buzzwords in the Classroom: Making Sense of the Discourse About Web2.0 in Classroom 2.0
- One Laptop per Child: Discourse in an Information Society Context
- Criminal [Digital] Literacy: A Response to Jonathan Rosa
- Prairienet2: Research Proposal 2009 (Development Strategies for Prairienet)
- Exploring Ubiquitous Learning: A case study of related concepts, objects and practice
- The Rantoul Public Library: Hard Times, Innovative Strategies and Community Informatics
- Museum Informatics: User and Web Driven Exhibitions
- Examining Digital Natives (critical, distributed knowledge)
- Criminal [Digital] Literacy: A response to Jonathan Rosa
- Digital Divide 2.0: African American Communities and Library Resources in Illinois
Posters and Presentations
- Exploring Methods in Community Informatics (Poster - iSchools, UIUC)
- An Introduction to Community Informatics (Presentation - teaching, UIUC)
- The Sao Tome Map Project: Empowering People Through Geographic Information Systems (GIS Fair 2009, UIUC)
- Web2.0 Resources and the Digital Divide: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Mortenson Group, UIUC)
Projects
eBlack Illinois: African American Communities and Library Resources in Illinois (Spring & Summer 2008)
This was a semester-to-summer project conducted with Abdul Alkalimat as part of his class on Technology and the Black Experience. One of the new forms of CTC’s are community organizations who integrate technologies into their daily operations, like libraries. The digital divide, however, is more than simple access, but really a myriad of issues relating to social power and construction of information. With this project I explored the capacity rural and small town libraries in Illinois have to facilitate what I termed at the time as “Digital Consciousness,” which is really in many ways simply a combination of Cyberpower and digital literacy. In essence I created a special sample of libraries from five counties that were predominantly or significantly African American and that were rural or small town. I called each library and surveyed them for information about their available technologies, personnel, tech policies and hardware and software specifically related to multimedia and web content production. The dataset was then summarized and reported in a large paper, available for download at http://www.communityinformaticsprojects.com/DigitalDivide2/index.html. I would like to follow up on this project in the future, if it meets with future research objectives. The description here does not really do it justice, read the abstract at the above URL to really understand the full scope of theory and research involved. I was able to develop my own understanding of theory in regards to the digital divide and contemporary internet with this project, as well as explore metrics for institutional ability to aid in digital literacy.
Community Informatics Multimedia Archive (Summer 2008)
One of my first projects with CI. Substantively it was actually a combination of two learning activities: learning a great deal about the history and programs/projects of CI at UIUC through processing and collecting multimedia and also an investigation into archival techniques and use of open source technologies for archival management. The archive includes a vibrant (but currently small) collection of pictures, video, audio, presentations, and posters related to CI. It’s organized into an easy-to-use website with a database backend. From a perspective of learning and research, this project helped me to understand some of the social and historical contexts of CI as well as employ technology to solve a problem (somewhat on behalf of community groups). The full archive is currently located at http://www.communityinformaticsprojects.com/CIMA/ and will be fully transferred to University servers by the end of the year.
The Rantoul Public Library: History and Storytelling in [Stop] Motion (Fall 2008 through Spring 2009)
What started with a simple site observation of a local library CTC for Kate Williams CI concepts class led to an entire paper and my current array of research. I initially visited and observed the site and interviewed a librarian, but found it held a lot of promise for research in the future. I decided to further the relationship by helping the library out with a simple need: better understanding their own history. I wrote a short exposition on the history of Rantoul Public Library and their relation to the digital divide, entitled “The Rantoul Public Library: Hard Times, Innovative Strategies and Community Informatics.” What this also allowed me to do was establish relationships with the local community members. Besides interviewing two of the older librarians I was able to learn about many of the aspects of the town and programs the library runs. Eventually what evolved out of our conversations and efforts together were ideas for new programs at the library. I’ll return to this topic in a moment, because I want to introduce my other project that semester.
Community Engagement (Fall 2008 through Spring 2009)
During Ann’s CE class I was able to actually pursue two projects, each with its own benefits. As part of my role as a TA for the class as well as a student I made a mini-documentary (30 min) capturing some of the different community engagement projects happening that semester. I was able to meet a number of community members through doing this and also think a lot about creative presentation of information in a new format, video. I’m actually really happy with the result, and if I had better voice audio (it was a tiny little digital camera) I’d call it professional. The entire documentary can be seen at http://www.communityinformaticsprojects.com/490CE.html in sequence or in sections on CIMA. Each organization was given a copy of the video for their own use, too.
The Sao Tome Map Project (Fall 2009)
Explain...
Papers
Prairienet2: Research Proposal 2009 (Development Strategies for Prairienet)
Cyberpower, participatory culture and digital literacy: Evolving our understanding of the digital divide, CTC's, and research directions for Prairienet. A proposal for the type of research Prairienet could (should?) conduct.
LIS590DRM | Professor Lori Kendall | Revision 2 | 07.08.2009
Exploring Ubiquitous Learning: A case study of related concepts, objects and practice
LIS590UBL | Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite, Mike Twidale and Bill Cope | Revision 1 | 05.13.2009
Ubiquitous learning is an emerging term and associated area of study that refers to a “new educational paradigm made possible in part by the affordances of digital media” (Cape and Kalantzis 2008). It is crucial to note, however, that this learning is reliant on not only ubiquitous computing but also fundamentally determined by progressive pedagogical practices. This paper explores ubiquitous learning from three different perspectives: in terms of theory as it relates to the concept of Web2.0, in terms of learning objects, using Facebook as an example, and as it can be related in practice with a stop-motion digital literacy workshop.
The Rantoul Public Library
Hard Times, Innovative Strategies and Community Informatics
LIS490CO | Professor Kate Williams | Revision 1 | 12.13.2008
Abstract
Libraries have historically played a critical role in providing a wide variety of informational, civic, and educational services to communities. In recent years with the mass adoption of the internet and other information communication technologies (ICT’s) they have become increasingly responsible for providing citizens with computer and internet access as well as training, support, and technology-oriented education. In small towns the library may in fact be one of the only places where reliable computing and technical information resources are to be found, especially for disadvantaged persons living in the area. Establishing relevant, diverse, and encouraging technology services in parallel to other traditional objectives like provision of children’s services, reading groups, collaboration with community organizations, the preservation of local history and culture, and, perhaps most importantly, the dedication of experienced and networked individuals is absolutely key to the vitality and success of modern small town and rural libraries.
This report is a case study of a modern small town library, the Rantoul Public Library located in Champaign County, Illinois. Situated in a town with an eventful and tumultuous economic history Rantoul public has evolved its services over the years to arrive at its current convergence of community and technology opportunities. This study draws on research conducted on site in Rantoul during the winter of 2008 to address the historical and contemporary development and interplay between community, library and technology. Namely both local and library history sources were consulted, two key librarian informants were interviewed and a number of investigative observations were compiled to establish a robust picture of Rantoul’s past and current state of affairs. It then goes further to discuss the particularities of Rantoul Public that have enabled it to engage and address the needs of patrons: fostering appropriate education, giving specialized attention to specific audiences, a hybrid community center library setting, and a diverse array of resources, technology and otherwise, and resourcefulness and creativity of several key dedicated individuals. These strategies are analyzed from the perspective of a developed Cyberpower and digital literacy theory framework in order to provide ideas and guidance Rantoul Public as well as for other similarly situated institutions and community-library relationships.
Keywords
Rantoul, Chanute, public library, community technology center, CTC, digital literacy, Cyberpower, digital divide
Museum Informatics: User and Web Driven Exhibitions
LIS590DK | Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite and Chip Bruce | Revision 1 | 11.01.2008
A paper written for my class on distributed knowledge, an idea building escapade centered on exploring the interesting ways museums can be wired into Web2.0.
Examining Digital Natives
LIS590DK | Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite and Chip Bruce | Revision 1 | 12.06.2008
A paper written for my class on distributed knowledge, a problematization of the "Digital Natives" ideology being thrown around lately.
Digital Divide 2.0:
African American Communities and Library Resources in Illinois
LIS590IBL | Professor Abdul Alkalimat | Revision 2 | 07.2008
Abstract
In the information era inequality is increasingly dictated by a myriad of issues related to both access and use of computer and internet technologies. Mere access to the web is an indisputably insufficient claim to equity; attention must also be paid to issues such as autonomy, skill, purposes, and perceptions related to technological access and participation in cyberspace. The final—and still yet emerging—barrier to equality is termed here as Digital Consciousness, a state of being which most digitally disadvantaged populations have little opportunity to develop. This is understandably so as the recipe for such an understanding includes socialization, digital literacy, and a realization of self and structure in the modern web. All of these factors are dependent upon both access and use. To develop a Digital Consciousness a person must have avenues and contexts available that provide these ingredients. The library is one potential space for this, but it is unclear to what extent contemporary libraries effectively facilitate this process.
The inequalities that African American communities have endured historically have been harsh, and digital inequality is no exception. To truly remedy the digital inequality for the African American people and other disadvantaged populations we must call for extensive change; a social movement situated within the context of the information revolution. This movement must embody cyberdemocracy, collective intelligence, and information freedom, each of which is dependent upon Digital Consciousness.
This report assesses the computing and internet resources present in numerous Illinois public libraries that serve African American populations. Library outlets are evaluated for their capacity to enable patrons to develop Digital Consciousness. The study finds that while libraries do a moderately good job providing basic resources for connectivity, creation, and the reception and production of knowledge, they do not live up to the potential that they could be. The paper concludes with discussion about how to best address challenges and start crafting sustainable and effective solutions.
Keywords
Digital divide, libraries, black communities, digital content, authorship, digitization, Illinois
Presentations
Web2.0 Resources and the Digital Divide: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
By Jeff Ginger | Revision 1 | 10.2008
Abstract
A presentation I made to the Mortenson Associates, a group of librarians from all around the world. It's essentially a blend of my three areas of study - the digital divide, Web2.0 and community empowerment. I review some examples of Web2.0 websites and then discuss their benefits and drawbacks. The presentation is connected to the critical and experiential access aspects of the digital divide (or digital inequality): communities can learn to understand and evaluate these websites to use them for their own needs and ultimately alter them for the betterment of everyone.
Keywords
Digital divide, Mortenson, international, Web2.0, good, bad, ugly, critical access, experiential access
Jeff conducted most of his research during his early years in grad school on Facebook.com, the rather famous social networking website. You can find out more about this project at: