[liberationtech] Liberating Voices pattern card deck now available for download

[Douglas Schuler]

Here's an announcement for our Liberating Voices pattern cards.  
Hopefully it will be useful to some of you.


We have finally finished the job we started over a year ago!

We have created a card for each pattern in Liberating Voices: A  
Pattern Language for Communication Revolution. We are making these  
cards freely available for download (in three parts at http://www.publicsphereproject.org/drupal/digital-resources/) 
  in the hopes that people will use them in creative and productive  
ways. One approach is to develop a workshop or game that will help  
lead to effective projects.

Each of the cards in this deck represents one pattern from the book  
that MIT Press published in 2008. Each pattern represents one idea for  
using information and communication for transformative social change.  
The book contains longer versions of the patterns as well as chapters  
on the theory and use of the patterns. The long versions of the  
patterns are also online at http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns.

A pattern is intended to act as a seed for thinking and acting, theory  
and practice.


Patterns are not intended to provide step-by-step instructions. As  
Christopher Alexander stated in A Pattern Language, the book that  
brought the idea of patterns and pattern languages to the world, "Each  
pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our  
environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that  
problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times  
over without ever doing it the same way twice."

Patterns are intended to be used by themselves or with each other  
patterns.


Currently the idea is to print the patterns on stiff paper or card  
stock and then cut each sheet into four cards. And there is an image  
included in this document that can be used as the back of the card. We  
are also looking into having the cards printed with higher resolution  
images on more durable material and making these available at a  
reasonable price. Let us know if you might be interested in that.

Of course there are more than 136 patterns in the world! For that  
reason we are continuing to support the development of new patterns.  
Let us know what your needs are in this respect.

Please feel free to use these cards any way you like. We'd of course  
like to hear from you about your experiences and what you've learned.  
What worked for you? What didn't? Do the cards work better for certain  
types of tasks or with certain groups of people?

Thanks again! We hope the patterns are useful!




Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Sphere Project
      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/

Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution  
(project)
      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/

Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution  
(book)
      http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601




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