Community IT workshops as a strategy for community learning

Abstract

A university-community partnership to develop strategies for sustainable IT learning in local non-profit organizations initiated the Central Pennsylvania Community Information Technology Workshop series in 2003. The original goal was narrow and modest: To plan a set of participatory action research projects in which Penn State faculty and students would work with members of Centre County (Pennsylvania) non-profit community groups to develop IT infrastructures and applications. Through four years the workshops grew into a broader strategy for facilitating a continuous and self-initiated learning process in the community.