AC students work to digitize small-town community communications

Posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

Learners in Algonquin College’s Computer Programming program are working to modernize community communications in rural Ontario. Their project will be one of the many to be displayed at the In-Class Projects Showcase on Aug. 3.

Students Maria Boulescu, Zachary Bimson, Changhwan Lee, Fabrizio Ruggirello and Davin Rousseau are developing a web-based “bulletin board” — developed to expedite and simplify community message posting — which is being designed for use in Vernon, Ont.

“Being digital, it’s always a lot faster to share the information. It makes it accessible for more people,” said Boulescu. “I find that, in physical form, many times the information can more easily get lost than in digital format.”

“[We’re trying to] bring a little bit of tech savviness and a little bit of community-driven web engagement to rural Ontario,” said Bimson.

The project incorporates a website, run by community administrators, that will allow residents to submit posters, advertisements, event announcements and other messages. Upon review by administration, these messages will then be posted to several video screens in public places, which Bimson said could include restaurants, bars, grocery stores and the like.

The team used a combination of programs like MongoDB and Nextcloud, as well as the relatively new JavaScript framework called SvelteKit. According to Bimson, the opportunity to use the latter program was an attractive prospect for the group and added an element of dynamism to the project’s development.

One concern that the team has acknowledged is some residents of small towns may not have the technical savvy to navigate this new process, especially if they are already familiar with physical bulletin boards. But the team is hopeful that, as technology of this nature becomes more familiar to people, it will become far easier for anyone to use.

“Something that is new and on a platform that they’re not totally familiar with can sometimes be a difficult transition,” said Bimson. “We hope and we’d like to see that in the future, the longer things like this are around, the more approachable it is to people who are generally not tech savvy.”

“It’s going to be slow for some people to start posting, but the existing posts will be accessible to a large portion of the community by having electronic displays of the board in commonly frequented places,” said Boulescu.

With the In-Class Projects Showcase only days away, Boulescu, Bimson and their group members are looking forward to both sharing the fruits of their hard work and seeing the innovative efforts of their fellow students.

“I can personally say that one of the things I’m looking forward to the most, when it comes to showcasing [our] work, is [the reaction of] students in my program who are in their first or second semester looking at a finished product and hopefully inspiring them to say ‘oh, look what I can do in the future, this is actually meaningful education that I’m receiving,’” said Bimson.

Click this link for registration details and additional information ahead of the Showcase.


Comments

Comments are closed.