Blog
- An Isolationist and race-driven nation
- What about refugees then?
- Is It Right To Speak Of A 'Jewish Lobby'?
- Equality and the Freedom of Religion
- What about Internet Censorship?
- Structural Failure: Undermining the Jewish Left
- Jeff Halper: Censorship in Australia
- Hand in Hand School. the documentary
- Gaza crisis
- Aldo de Moor's recent post on community informatics
Why?
Since the early 90s I have worked in and with community-based organisations in various information, community development, and research roles, including a number of technology innovations. With the advent of the internet, I saw great opportunities for change -- and also great challenges to how we do our work.
I began to become interested in how we know what we are doing with technology, is 'right', 'wrong', or somewhere in between. I'm particularly interested in how we know what is valuable to both communities and people (usually government) who support such initiatives. They aren't always the same thing. Different discourse frames and power relations mean that very different world views are frequently at stage (and all the shades therein). I've also become active with various networks of practitioners and researchers locally and internationally. A lot of my time has been engaged in organising conferences and workshops because much of what we do and understand doesn't make for easy writing or documentation. It's also an obvious truth that nothing works as well as people getting together and--networking! We are engaged in not just simple research, but applied action and research.
I'll add content as time permits.
You might like to look at the piece on 'community informatics' (the academic term that is bandied around these days) that I started off in Wikipedia, and add to it.
I've also got a few political obsessions which fill my blog.
Review: Michael Gurstein, What Is Community Informatics (and Why Does It Matter)?
Fri, 2009-08-14 01:00 — larryjhsMichael Gurstein, What Is Community Informatics (and Why Does It Matter)? (Milan: Polimetrica, 2007), 107 pp., ISBN 978-88-7699-097-7 (pbk), €25.00.
Monographs are far and few between in community informatics. Mike Gurstein has had a key role in establishing the field, and this short book outlines his thinking at the moment.
- Read more
- 299 reads
The Digital Doorways Project: Social-Technical innovation for High Needs Communities (DRAFT)
Tue, 2009-08-04 03:01 — larryjhsThis is a draft paper about the Digital Doorway and some possibilities in Australia based on recent work. If you wish to cite it, it should only be cited as a draft.
- 374 reads
Community Informatics and Information Systems: can they be better connected?
Tue, 2009-07-07 13:30 — larryjhsThis is a paper that is to appear in Information Society sometime in 2009. Attached is the pre-publication draft. It involved some tough theorizing.
Larry Stillman and Henry Linger
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University
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- 359 reads
Empowerment: Prato Conference 2009
Sat, 2009-03-07 01:55 — larryjhsThe Prato community informatics is going ahead again this year, at the start of November.
We will be talking about the following.
The idea of 'empowerment' has a number of special connotations in the Community Informatics space. Community Informatics is an approach to empowering communities with information and communication technologies. There is a widespread expectation that Community Informatics will enhance democracy, develop social capital, build communities, develop economies and empower individuals and groups, and result in many different forms of social change. Community Informatics, in bringing together communities and technologies, works across at least three dimensions, though there may be others which are relevant.
For details, see the information page.
- 691 reads
DoingITBetterProject
Mon, 2007-06-25 08:41 — AnonymousThe Doing IT Better project, a university-community IT capacity-building project is about to get going. A key guiding principle is that of ‘Open Knowledge’, as distinct from individualistic activity. The idea of Open Knowledge had appeared to me as one similar to that found in the Open Source movement, in that strength could only come about through collaboration, information sharing, and information distribution, in a sector that is used to this principle.
The great things about the project are that
*it is independently funded
* it is for 3-years
* it is intended as action research.
See the project site for updates.
- Read more
- 1519 reads
Commentary: Is It Web 2.0 or Is It Better Information and Knowledge That We Need?
Thu, 2008-12-04 23:32 — larryjhsStillman, L. and J. McGrath (2008). "Is It Web 2.0 or Is It Better Information and Knowledge That We Need?." Australian Social Work 421-428(61): 4.
For copyright reasons, this file cannot be saved, printed, or copied. You will need to access your university's subscription to ASW for complete access.
- 1092 reads
Representing Practice Wisdom: Adapting Corporate Modelling for Better Welfare Practice
Thu, 2008-12-04 23:24 — larryjhsStillman, L., S. Kethers, R. French and D. Lombard (2008). Representing Practice Wisdom: Adapting Corporate Modelling for Better Welfare Practice. 10th Australian Conference for Knowledge Management & Intelligent Decision Support. Ballarat.
- 1230 reads
