The Crowdmapping Mirafiori Sud Experience: An Educational Methodology Through a Collaborative and Inclusive Process

Abstract

The CrowdMapping Mirafiori Sud (CMMS) pilot project, carried out by the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy), involved the academic world (students and professors), the Mirafiori Onlus Foundation, the local administration and the community in a participatory and inclusive process. The district is a large area of ​​Turin characterized by a high average age of its inhabitants and a high percentage of foreigners. The aim of the project is to identify and report, through the use of ICT, the obstacles that prevent residents - the most vulnerable categories - from using public space. In the start-up phase, it was not born as a PBL approach, but during the application the PBL was considered a development perspective in the educational experience starting from the students' proposals and the exchange of their skills, in the specific declination of the PBL approach known as community engaged learning. For students, this version of PBL has proven to be strategic in the implementation phases of the project, in particular in the mapping of interested parties and the data set and connections between networks of actors.