Exploring Public Places as Infrastructures for Civic M-Learning

Abstract

We present insights from a series of engagements with multiple stakeholders in local parks, aiming to explore the potential for technology to support bespoke outdoor civic learning activities. Our work investigates what it means to design for public spaces as infrastructures for civic learning. Rather than considering only parks' physical qualities or properties as resources for learning, we suggest that mobile technologies for civic learning would benefit from integrating incorporating the economic, socio-cultural and political infrastructures that comprise public spaces. Our findings identify significant opportunities and challenges in designing mobile applications aimed at fostering civic learning and enhancing the development of meaningful relationships with civic space. From our findings, we draw implications for designing digital platforms which harness places' existing multiple infrastructures as resources for civic learning. We also note technology's limitations, and produce a generalizable model of a civic m-learning design space.