Folk computing: revisiting oral tradition as a scaffold for co-present communities

In this paper, we introduce Folk Computing: an approach for using technology to support co-present community building inspired by the concept of folklore. We also introduce a new technology, called "i-balls," whose design helped fashion this approach. The design of the i-ball environment is explained in terms of our effort to simultaneously preserve what works about folklore while also using technology to expand its power as a medium for community building. Keywords Groupware, CSCW, ubiquitous computing, face-to-face, education, community, folklore, handheld, mobile computing, social computing, PDA

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Richard Borovoy, Brian Silverman, Tim Gorton, Matt Notowidigdo, Brian Knep, Mitchel Resnick, Jeff Klann
• Keywords: CHI 2001, Co-present Community Building, Community Building, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing