Scratching Out Problems: Exploring the Use of Computational Thinking for Social Work in Rural India

Technologies for development have great potential in accelerating the socio-economic progress of disadvantaged communities. But these technologies are usually developed by people removed from the daily realities of fieldwork. This paper explores the need and the possibilities of educating rural populations and social workers on the use of technology to create their own digital artifacts. We discuss two workshops, one for villagers in the state of Telangana and the second one for graduate students of a university social work department exploring the use of MIT's Scratch software as a tool for assisting in social interventions. We also discuss the results of an acceptability study among the social work students to gauge the potential for such a tool to be used in the field.