Sylvia Martinez in technology enabled service learning projects writes how the effective use of technology is about “providing students with context and real life projects [that] makes learning come alive.” “This means students can go beyond “tech skills” to authentic learning and citizenship that lasts a lifetime”.
“It’s harder to argue that blogs or social networks are just time wasters when they are being used to discuss cultural issues with students in Tibet, or say that student email is unnecessary when students are key members of a city-wide safe water campaign.”
I’ve been thinking about this lately as I’m currently planning a cultural study tour to Vietnam for the senior Modern History and Geography classes. We are looking at incorporating a meaningful service aspect into the trip. I don’t want to do this in an ad-hoc or superficial manner and am looking at how to blend the experience with the aim of helping students understand Vietnam’s history more deeply. One idea is for students to raise funds and visit orphans who have been affected by dioxins – an ongoing consequence of the war in Vietnam. From ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, it is estimated by the Vietnamese that “three million of their people – including third-generation babies being born today – are victims, suffering from high levels of cancer and birth defects. They blame the effects of the deadly poison dioxin [Agent Orange], contained in the 42 million litres of the herbicide that was sprayed over their countryside for eight years in the 1960s.”
Teaching students the value of giving is crucial as is helping them develop a wider view of the world, especially being conscious that there is a level of poverty that is beyond our middle class experiences. I’m thinking about how to do this in a way that extends beyond a self-indulgent “servi-tourism”.
Students from our school have been involved in the past in a range of projects, including building stoves in Peru, painting a school in PNG and delivering bicycles to an orphanage in Fiji. To hear students talk about how much these experiences meant to them and the people involved and how it changed their thinking about the world was moving.
Sylvia links to the new K-12 Service-Learning Project Planning Kit, from the National Service Learning Clearinghouse in which includes the following steps:
- Choosing a meaningful problem for your service-learning project
- Linking to curriculum standards, citizenship and social-emotional goals
- Developing an assessment plan
- Implementing a high quality service-learning activity
- Designing reflection activities
- Organizing a culminating event
A Season of Service: Introducing Service Learning into the Liberal Arts Curriculum
Benjamin R. Barber, Richard Battistoni
PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 235-240
Photo: Tim Barnsley
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