“Technology-Integrated Community Planning Workshop (I)” focused on the theme “Digital Neighborhood Co-Creation — Community Life Mapping.” The workshop invited Urban Baker founders Chang Hsueh-Min and Ho Ya-Ting as instructors, guiding students to use mobile app tools to reconnect with their everyday community environments through their own lived experiences. The activity centered on how digital tools can support local participation, using map tagging and collective discussion to create a “community life map” from residents’ perspectives. The workshop began with an introduction to the Urban Baker app, where the instructors demonstrated how to mark daily routes, meaningful public nodes, and potential problem areas (such as cluttered spaces or unsafe pathways) on the map interface. This allowed students to quickly become familiar with the tool before conducting on-site observations. Students then went into the community to tag locations of interest within the app, adding notes on their observations and reflections. After data collection, the team overlaid and compared the map layers generated by different groups. Through cross-analysis, they identified both shared and divergent patterns of spatial use—for example, which areas were commonly perceived as important community nodes, and which corners were frequently overlooked or marked as problematic. These visualized results encouraged students to consider the actual use of public spaces and the community’s potential needs. Finally, students held group discussions to develop community-related topics and narratives, such as the interaction between older neighborhoods and new residents, insufficient play spaces for children, or mobility challenges faced by the elderly. They then explored possible improvements from a user-oriented perspective. Overall, the workshop integrated technological tools into local observation, enhancing students’ sensitivity to and understanding of community spaces. It also strengthened their teamwork, data literacy, and communication skills—laying a foundation for more in-depth spatial planning and proposal development in subsequent activities.

Implemented by Center for Teaching and Learning Development
Date: 2025/04/21