Service learning and building community with the World Wide Web

The geography education literature touts the World Wide Web (Web) as a revolutionary educational tool, yet most accounts ignore its uses for public communication and creative expression. This article argues that students can be producers of content that is of service to local audiences. Drawing inspiration from the community networking movement, the article presents two examples of "Web-raising" service learning projects in which geography students created a Web site with and for local community organizations. Evaluations suggest that the Web raisings were significant learning experiences for both students and community participants, but that logistical factors and characteristics of the students and organizations affected the degree to which this learning took place.