September 22, 2014
During the summer, TASCHA and the UW Jackson School hosted 25 of Myanmar’s leaders from government, civil society, political parties, ethnic communities, libraries, and the media for a five-week workshop. During the five weeks, the fellows honed their leadership skills and developed information strategies that will broaden information literacy throughout the country, facilitate the peace building process, and support fair elections in the next year.
September 3, 2014
As noted in the previous post, Democratized Tools of Production: New Technologies Spurring the Maker Movement, the power and opportunity purported to emerge from the maker movement is strongly focused on STEM education and the ‘tools of production’. This post will focus on the history of STEM, how other schools of thought have critiqued and added new areas to STEM, and the relationship of these issues to ‘making’ and the maker movement.
August 29, 2014
This summer TASCHA, along with the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, hosted 25 of Myanmar’s leaders from government, civil society, political parties, ethnic communities, libraries, and the media. The fellows took part in a 5-week professional development program focused on information strategies for societies in transition. These distinguished individuals and the UW-Myanmar project team invite you to join them for a lunch reception where you can learn about their proposed projects and the plans for a Myanmar Information Laboratory.
August 28, 2014
Family farming is a predominant form of agriculture both in developed and developing countries, with over 500 million productive units in the entire world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is promoting 2014 as the international year of family farming. This particular form of agriculture work refers to farms that are managed by family members and are usually small or medium in size and productivity. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are playing a key role in this scenario. New generations of younger farmers are embracing ICTs, demonstrating that the two spaces can be complementary. Mobile phones, particularly, are providing a great platform to connect them to the “rurbanity,” a new (key) concept to understand hybrid spaces where cities and the countryside are part of the same social reality.
August 18, 2014
The discourse surrounding the Maker Movement, particularly in the political spectrum, focuses heavily on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education, manufacturing, and jobs (Kalil, Extreme Marshmellow Canons, 2012). It is the technology and tools that are ushering in “the new industrial revolution” (Anderson, 2012). Through democratizing access to these tools, “anyone can change the world” (Hatch, 2014 p.10). Makerspaces are said to give communities facing social and economic challenges the ability to create jobs, innovate, and grow small businesses, through access to the tools of production (Barjarin, 2014) (Gershenfeld, 2005).
August 13, 2014
This summer TASCHA, along with the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, is pleased to be hosting 25 of Myanmar’s leaders from government, civil society, political parties, ethnic communities, libraries, and the media. The fellows are taking part in a 5-week professional development program about information strategies for societies in transition. Please join us for a panel discussion and reception with the fellows of the UW-Myanmar Leadership Program to learn about Myanmar on Thursday, August 21st, 5-8pm, at the UW Club.
August 6, 2014
TASCHA researcher Jessica Beyer has a new book out, Expect Us: Online Communities and Political Mobilization, published by Oxford University Press. People use online social forums for all sorts of reasons, including political conversations, regardless of the site’s main purpose. But what leads some of these people to take their online political activity into the offline world of activism? In her book, Jessica looks at political consciousness and action in four communities, each born out of chaotic online social spaces that millions of individuals enter, spend time in, and exit moment by moment: Anonymous (4chan), IGN, World of Warcraft, and The Pirate Bay.
July 31, 2014
We’ve developed numerous resources to help answer the overarching question, “Why do public access ICTs matter for development? The goal of the resources listed below is to help make the study’s findings and data more accessible and relevant to the international development, public library, and public access communities. It is our hope that you’ll find these materials useful in understanding the study’s key findings and recommendations, as well as for use in your own work
Early on in the digital divide conversation, myriad donors and governments invested in telecentres — public spaces where people could access computers and learn about the internet. Fast forward to today, where billions have personal internet in their pocket and use Facebook daily, and there is a real question — do we still need public access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the age of the mobile phone?
A recent IREXtech Deep Dive discussion sponsored by IREX’s Center for Collaborative Technology and co-sponsored by the University of Washington’s Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA), brought together a group of leading public access technology experts and development practitioners to debate this question and envision various public access futures. Highlights of the discussion follow.
July 30, 2014
The extensive discourse regarding ‘making’ and the maker movement is primarily centered on the opportunities that ‘making’ creates for society, particularly for manufacturing, entrepreneurship, and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Through this blog post series, “Making and the maker movement: A democratizing force or an example of cultural reproduction?” (this is the first blog post out of a series of 5), I aim to critically examine this discourse, not in an attempt to discredit the movement and its supporters, but rather to draw attention to the issues and challenges of the maker movement and how these may be addressed. These point-of-view pieces will draw on literature, media, and conversations with people who are actively engaged in the movement.
