Mutually Leveraging Information Technology Literacy and Community Networks

该项目将调查参与社区网络活动的人的非正式技术教育成果。它将为高度互动和协作的万维网项目开发和评估一个基础设施，其中包含社区构建的示例，并结合最终用户授权的工具和教学材料，旨在支持非正式的、面向社区的、面向社区的Web编程边做边学。它将记录使用此基础设施的示例应用程序开发的案例研究，以及对这些应用程序开发活动产生的技术素养影响的经验评估；实证评估还将考察职业选择和就业结果，以及附带的社区影响。它将为社区团体制定一个参与性设计模型（包括对这种方法的边界条件的分析）。它将调查这样一个假设，即当人们被授权成为技术的生产者而不是消费者时（即通过最终用户授权工具），当他们被提供一个有意义的学习和应用环境时（即，社区），学习信息技术技能和应用这些技能的动机就会增加和维持。这项工程的潜在影响是巨大的。根据年龄、性别、社会经济地位和种族不同，13个社区群体将被纳入本研究。开发的模式将传播到其他社区。

This project will investigate informal technology education outcomes for people who engage in community network activities. It will develop and evaluate an infrastructure for highly interactive and collkaborative World-Wide Web projects, populated with community-built examples, and incorporating end-user authorizing tools and instructional materials designed to support informal, community-oriented community-oriented learning-by-doing of Web programming. It will document case studies of example application development utilizing this infrastructure, and an empirical evaluation of the technology literacy impacts that result from these application development activities; the empirical evaluation will also exmine career choice and employment outcomes, and collateral community impacts. It will produce a participatory design model for community groups (including an analysis of the boundary conditions for such an approach). It will investigate the hypothesis that the learning of information technology skills, and motivation for applying those skills, is increased and sustaied when people are emopowered to become producers rather than consumers of technology (i.e via end-user authorizing tools) and when they are provided with a meaningful contxt for learning and application that persists beyond and independently of the immediate learning context (i.e., the community). The potential impacts of this project are large. Thirteen community groups that vary according to age, gender, socio-economic status, and ethnicity will be included in this study. The model that is developed will be disseminated to other communities.