Workshops

Are you shaping the tools or techniques that help other people shape their world?

There is no job description for what you do. You mix dedication to social change, confidence with people and organisations, and technical knowledge or skills. You are part of a growing number of committed people using innovation and ICT to help others work on social and political issues.

PRADSA is a project funded to provide a series of workshops around the UK to share best practice amongst people with your hybrid interests and skills. In particular, this offers the opportunity:

June 10th and 11th at Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford http://www.anglia.ac.uk
This workshop picks up a theme close to the hearts of participants in previous PRaDSA events and anyone who has to find the money to develop and implement their good ideas. We take as our theme the issue of fundraising, the politics of financial support for social action organisations and the wellbeing of our communities.

In particular we ask:

PRaDSA (Practical Design for Social Action) has been running a series of workshops around the UK to share experience among people with technology and social action interests and skills and provide a forum for discussion and reflection on issues chosen by participants. This last workshop focuses on the central issues of power and participation in working with technology to make social action happen.

PRADSA held its 4th Workshop on 11/12th March 2008 under the theme: Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies (and Social Networking Tools) for Social Action. The Workshop drew over 40 delegates from both Europe and the United States. A diverse group of presenters gave presentations on a variety of topics in relation to web 2.0. These are summarised below. For full presentations, please follow the links right after the respective summaries.

June 10th and 11th at Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford http://www.anglia.ac.uk

This workshop picks up a theme close to the hearts of participants in
previous PRaDSA events and anyone who has to find the money to develop
and implement their good ideas. We take as our theme the issue of
fundraising, the politics of financial support for social action
organisations and the wellbeing of our communities.

In particular we ask:

What is it we need to design?

Andy argues that

"Practical Design for Social Action should focus on
procuring and managing technology rather than designing the technology itself"

This discussion will be an opportunity for newcomers to find out more about the PraDSA project, and for 'old timers' to explore our visions about what we are trying to achieve together.

read more and join the hotseat

We invite you to present an idea or case study at this PRaDSA workshop on "Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies and (Social Networking Tools) for Social Action" to be held in London in March.

Marc Ostens talk from the workshops

Niki's presentation addressed the problem of creating an online collaborative learning community using social networking tools and Facebook in particular. Niki talked about a small study that was conducted to record users’ behaviour on Facebook. Other aspects touched upon were the usability and utility of social networking tools and Facebook including the development of a group of practice with the sense of community. Click here for a full view of the presentation

Bernard shared his experience of using web 2.0 technologies in his MISPA project. He reflected on his and his project participants less affluent IT skills and how helpful the technologies they had adopted had been in terms of achieving their objectives. He also discussed some of the challenges they faced as a team as they embarked on the use of the technologies. His full presentation is here