Presentation submitted for Computers and Writing Online 2005
Co-authored by Olin Bjork and John Pedro Schwartz
Abstract
E-service learning is our term for an emerging form of composition and service learning (CSL) in which students produce Web sites with and for service organizations. Our e-service learning model stresses the importance of a contractual, reciprocal relationship between students and members of the organization. By contractual, we mean that the organization agrees to accept delivery of the Web project. By reciprocal, we mean that the students agree to consult members at every stage of the Web writing process. In this presentation, we discuss the potential benefits and challenges of this approach to incorporating Web writing and service learning in composition courses.
Introduction
In a 2002 Kairos article entitled “Web Writing and Community Service in Freshman Composition,” Meredith Sorapure asks, “is it too much of a dilution of community service-learning principles to say that creating a website for a local organization or community group constitutes a kind of community service?” An affirmative answer presupposes that the community service component of a service-learning project – sharing in the work performed by an organization – is separate from the writing component. A negative answer assumes that the writing component can itself be a form of community service. But the negative answer begs a second question: what forms of writing can plausibly be considered community service? In some composition and service learning (CSL) projects, students engage in traditional service activities and then write about their learning experiences. Such projects bring students into contact with “real life,” where what they learn serves as a prompt for invention when they write. In other CSL projects, students assist a group or organization in composing service-related documents. These projects connect student writing to real audiences, so that what students learn issues into action. We argue that the second writing activity constitutes community service because in this scenario students write with and for the organization and therefore the community. The answer to Sorapure’s question depends, then, on the level of interaction between the organization and the students creating the Web site.
Defining E-Service Learning
E-service learning is our term for CSL projects in which students serve the community through their Web writing. The e-service learning model that we propose assumes that instructors have trained students in Web design. The students (working in groups) first familiarize themselves with an organization that serves their campus or the larger community. They then analyze the organization’s Web site – its rhetorical appeals, accessibility, interactivity, representativeness – and identify areas for improvement. They next write a proposal to reconstruct the site in order to make it more persuasive, accessible, interactive, and/or representative. If the organization has no Web site, the students write a proposal to build one. The proposal should reflect not only students’ analysis but also their interactions with the organization and community. Students then deliver the proposal to organization members, who may respond by welcoming the (re)construction of the site. If members remain unconvinced, students can revise or expand their proposal and resubmit it to the organization. Communication between students and organization members greatly increases the chances that the organization will endorse the students’ proposed (re)construction of the site. Whether or not students receive an endorsement, they will move to the final phase of the project: (re)construction of the site.
E-service need not preclude more traditional kinds of service. Depending on the nature of the organization and the assignment, students can achieve familiarity with the organization through one or a combination of three ways: participating in the work performed by the organization; interviewing the organization’s members, observing its activities, touring its facilities, and reading its literature; assuming the role of a service recipient (e.g., being served, as opposed to serving, at a soup kitchen). As in traditional CSL projects, students learn from these experiences and use their learning as a prompt for invention when they write. But while the learning process may continue when students write in traditional CSL projects, in e-service learning projects students additionally learn how to direct their writing to real audiences.
In e-service learning projects, the audience is comprised of organization members, potential volunteers, and service recipients. Students’ relationship to this audience can be contractual or non-contractual. In a contractual relationship, the service organization agrees at least provisionally to accept the Web site or Web pages proposed by the students. In a non-contractual one, students still design a Web site on behalf of the service organization, but with the understanding that it will not be hosted by the organization itself. In both cases, it is essential that students consult organization members at all stages of the writing process. Such reciprocity has the advantage of matching the skills of students with the needs of the organization. Instructors can boost the likelihood of contractuality by scouting suitable organizations for their students. For several decades, instructors of technical and professional writing have located businesses or “clients” with which to match individual students or groups of students. They find this client/server or internship arrangement preferable to having students write for hypothetical organizations and audiences. Though most of these clients have been for-profit organizations, the last decade has witnessed a movement to integrate service learning with technical and professional writing (Huckin 1997). The results have been mixed, however, in part because many of the students who enroll in such courses do not believe that the writing skills acquired through serving a non-profit organization will be marketable (Matthews and Zimmerman 1999). Instructors in other areas of composition may face resistance from students who are not prepared to do service at all. In both cases, instructors can mitigate student resistance by stressing that encounters with real audiences and rhetorical situations provide unique learning benefits.
Responding to our initial abstract, Kristen Hogan agreed with Robert Koch, another early responder, that our abstract makes the project parameters too rigid, and that instructors should consider the broader relationship between service organizations and technology. Hogan wrote that our e-service learning model should
invite students and organizations to consider not only central websites but also web-based projects like an oral history project, a community survey, a webstreamed event, a public relations page, etc. It might also be that questions of access lead students (even those who are just beginning web design) to take on community technology-access projects in connection with their organization, including researching grant proposals or other funding for installing computers at the organization's public site, developing web or technology training sessions for an organization's community, or setting up a network between the organization and related organizations, whether physically or through links and communication about technology resources.
Hogan’s comment has made us rethink what we mean by e-service. Although we have continued to focus on central Web sites in order to simplify our model and presentation, we recognize that the organization's and instructor's goals will determine the project carried out by students, and that this project can assume a variety of forms. The most important determining factor, however, will be the level of reciprocity between students and organization members, who naturally know their needs better than students and instructors do.
Examples
Sorapure (2002) describes several projects that combine Web writing with community service and resemble the e-service learning model we propose. The projects differ in the degree of reciprocity between students and organization members and in pedagogical emphasis. In Sorapure’s own project, her Freshman Composition students redesigned a Web site for UCSB’s Community Affairs Board (CAB), a student-run organization that coordinates volunteering activities in the local community and on campus. Six groups of students worked on the same project, developing their own design for the CAB Web site. Representatives of CAB then selected the design they liked best. Sorapure points out her project emphasized Web design rather than community service. Although the e-service was contractual, reciprocity was limited by the contest format. Because there were six sites in progress for one organization, winning design reflects only a limited amount of face-to-face interaction between students and organization members.
Christina L. Prell (2004) finds that such interaction may be necessary long after students deliver the Web site to the organization. She argues that the notion of a ‘‘final project’’ must be replaced by that of “ownership or sustainability.” If there is a high degree of reciprocity, the organization should develop a sense of ownership of its Web site. But if its members are not prepared to maintain it, the continuation of their relationship to the students becomes crucial. Ideally, instructors should allow time, after product delivery, for students to answer and even solicit questions concerning hosting and servicing the Web site. Otherwise, she warns, a deteriorating site may become more of a burden than a service.
Conclusion
In this presentation, we have introduced the term e-service learning to denote an emerging form of composition and service learning that not only combines Web writing and community service but also constitutes the writing as a form of service. We have also proposed a model for composition instructors interested in designing e-service learning projects. We have described the model in flexible terms because we recognize that instructors may want to adapt it to suit their pedagogical needs. We maintain, however, that while a contractual relationship between the students and service organizations is desirable, a reciprocal relationship is essential to e-service learning.
References
Huckin, Thomas N (1997). "Technical Writing and Community Service." Journal of Business and Technical Communication vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 49-59.
Matthews, Catherine and Beverly B. Zimmerman (1999). "Integrating Service Learning and Technical Communication: Benefits and Challenges" Technical Communication Quarterly vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 383-404.
Prell, C.L. (2004). "Web writing and service learning: A call for training as a final deliverable." In J.A. Inman, C. Reed, and P. Sands (Eds.) Electronic collaboration in the Humanities: Issues and options. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 187-197.
Sorapure, Madeleine (2002). “Web Writing and Community Service in Freshman Composition." Kairos 7.3 http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.3/binder2.html?coverweb/sorapure/index.h....
service learning writing
I'm not able to work service learning of this sort into my present classes, fyc anyway, because of the way our portfolio process works. It's more logistical than pedagogical, but I just haven't figured out a way to make it happen. I'm also trying to work in websites in general and having a hard time. I think this sort of writing is important, and the service component provides the authentic audience as you note, making it an even more valuable writing experience.
I look forward to seeing what others have to say.
Bradley
Sustainability
Nice essay. I agree with Prell's piece—sustainability is a huge issue for service learning projects which involve web pages. In fact, I think it can be a challenge for all kinds of experiential learning situations. I'd love to hear more about the ways you folks think e-service learning could be structured to avoid the problems Prell writes of, and/or similar difficulties you've identified.
cbd.
Re: service learning writing
Bradley,
We assumed that our readers would already have some familiarity with service learning. But we probably should have included a definition to help establish a starting point for our model. In the near future, we plan to expand on what we have written here by adding more contextualization, practical advice, and examples.
Here at the University of Texas, an instructor is required to obtain an official service learning designation for a course in which he or she intends to assign a full fledged service learning project. We have yet to do so, having only recently started thinking along these lines.
We both teach in computer-assisted classrooms, so it is easier for us to implement Web projects than it is for many other instructors. Knowing this to be the case, when writing our initial abstract we decided to downplay the Web site (re)construction stage of our model and to emphasize the analysis/evaluation and proposal stages. But after finding a number of precedents in which composition students have (re)constructed Web sites for organizations, we changed our mind and went with a more ambitious model. However, we probably should have noted that, in a scaled down version of our model, students can deliver a prototype, storyboards, or even just a detailed textual description in lieu of an actual Web site.
Olin and John Pedro
service learning and permissions
In some ways, I think the emphasis on the early part of the process, what we might look at as the research stage, is worthwhile. I think that fits with what cbd (that's also a Bradley, mind you) points out in regard to sustainabilty as something to consider, and something I hadn't thoughtfully considered in my forays into service learning.
Maybe sustainability can be addressed by pointing students to some of the existing service learning projects and revisiting those folks/organizations to see if there is any revision or rethinking they would like to see happen. Since websites evolve over time, no reason to take that evolution out of the service learning project.
Bradley Bleck
Re: Sustainability
Prell devotes a section to the issue of sustainability, and advocates that students provide training in addition to or instead of deliverables. She argues that instructors need to move "beyond calendars and classrooms" and think about these projects programmatically. If instructors are able to extend the time frame of the project from one semester to two or more, students in one class could help an organization sustain and perfect a Web site
that students in a previous class had helped build. Instructors who want or need to encapsulate the project in one semester should put it in motion ASAP so that students will have time to help the organization learn to maintain their site. A further alternative is to require students to discuss with the organization problems related to maintenance that the organization can expect to encounter in the future.
Olin and John Pedro
the reciprocity of e-work and the community
I really like this notion of web work as service learning. I teach a course in UW-Milwaukee’s Cultures & Communities program (one which offers a certificate, something akin to a minor, for students) which requires a service learning component. This core course is taught in various departments such as anthropology, history and even science and art. However, most of the service learning assignments I saw seemed to have little bearing on the course I was trying to teach—one that was housed in English, was a hybrid (online, f2f) and that incorporated TK3’s multimedia author software. As such, I made a deal with our campus Service Learning Institute to let my students document Milwaukee civil rights leaders lives in TK3 and then to present these to an inner city community for the purposes of education. While successful I think, on many levels, I quickly realized the community members needed to be able to have more of a hand in their own representation and have written a grant that hopes to waiving tuition for inner city residents in order to enroll them in a similar class and teach them to create/manage these projects (I am presenting a portion of this work at the f2f C&W).
I guess then, my question/s are as follows:
You note that “Whether or not students received an endorsement [from the community], they will move to the final phase of the project: (re) construction of the site” (par. 2) and also, with regard to the finished project and the community’s ownership of the site, “if its members are not prepared to maintain it, the continuation of their relationship becomes crucial” (par 7).
What happens to the real world aspect of the students’ web work if they do not receive this community endorsement? Do they still offer the site for the subject’s use, if wanted, upon completion? And if not, does this defeat any of you interest in them doing work that will reach a real audience? And with regard to sustainability, might not the entity for which the site is made have members who could be trained in a subsequent service learning project? Or if not, maybe a stand alone project (such as the CD’s we burned for our inner city community) could be a better option since they require no maintenance.
Thanks for sharing this work; it will be really useful for me in terms of reconsidering my own service learning projects.
Sincerely,
virginia kuhn
http://www.uwm.edu/~vkuhn/
Re: service learning and permissions
Bradley,
An advantage of the formal permission system is that you get a classroom full of students who have expressed an interest in service learning. On the other hand, many students who would benefit from service learning will never find their way into such a course.
Revisiting organizations and projects seems like a good approach, either as the project itself or as the preparation stage for embarking on a new project with a new organization.
John Pedro and Olin
Re: The Reciprocity of E-Work and the Community
Thanks Virginia,
After some discussion, we decided that if students do not receive an organization's endorsement of their proposal, they should go ahead with their (re)construction of the site--taking into consideration any feedback from the organization--and resubmit their proposal based on their latest work. If students engage in enough reciprocity with the organization, i.e., communicate with the organization at all levels of the Web writing process, then they should be able to achieve some degree of contractuality, i.e., agreement on the part of the organization to accept delivery of the Web product. If in spite of repeated attempts, students do not gain acceptance for their proposal, they should nonetheless continue with the project (since the audience remains real, after all) and take comfort in a lesson well learned: that in the real world proposals are declined as often as they are accepted. Regarding sustainability, we welcome both of your excellent suggestions. While for the sake of unity we focused on Web sites, we recognize the merit of stand-alone projects and include them under the umbrella of e-service learning. And including training organization members to sustain the Web site as another stage in the overall project sounds eminently feasible.
John Pedro and Olin
training students in web design and all of the above?
The article states that
I have my doubts as to whether or not this is actually feasible for a student service learning project if the course in which the project occurs is responsible for teaching students web design and preparing them to do all of this analysis. Five-six years ago this might have been possible, for web design was a much simpler thing than it is today. Without adequate background prerequisite to the course in usability, HTML and CSS authoring, graphic design, accessibility, and information architecture, as well as familiarity with "interactive" options for websites--i.e., content management systems--not to mention work with rhetorical analysis, it seems unlikely to me that we could teach students enough in one course to be able to do this sort of extensive analysis which normally requires experienced web developers and then have them implement the site.
Rather than imagining that students could accomplish all of this, would it be better for professional writing/multimedia courses to deal with a more focused analysis and implementation in a couple of areas--say the information architecture of the site and the rhetorical strategies--so that students provide a better "value" to their clients rather than the "we can do all approach" that I'm feeling is being suggested here? Particulary proposals without implementation may be more succesful depending on the previous experience of the students. Thus, I think Hogan's suggestions about "oral history project, a community survey, a webstreamed event, a public relations page" might also be a more attainable goal for students and result in a product that would foster an ongoing relationshiop with clients to continue working with students. I'm also suggesting this because my experience with student projects that have too wide a scope is that while they can be great learning experiences for the students, they don't necessarily produce a product which is usable by the clients.
how sophisticated a site should students build?
I'm abandoning my web building project for this quarter today, despite a bit of work students have already done. I need to make it part of the class from the get go, not something we do at the end. Still, none of those students has ever built a website, and I suspect this is common for lots of folks, so even building a basic, rudimentary site, kinda like the first sites I put together, is a good starting place, despite the lack of sophistication they are likely to exhibit.
But, as noted in the discussion on sustainability, the sites can evolve over time, as organizations determine what they need or want and students come along with the abilities to learn how to fill those needs. So, no need for excellence from the get go, at least not for me.
Bradley
Training and Sophistication
We concede that our model seems a bit pie in the sky when stated in general terms. But if instructors train students in Web design, they will then be able to match them to organizations according to their abilities. And if students are allowed to choose their own clients, they will probably choose wisely if they understand that client satisfaction (as opposed to site sophistication) will be the basis for assessment. Here at UT-Austin, many worthwhile campus groups lack an adequate Web presence and would be happy to receive even a modest Website.
Olin and John Pedro
Olin and John Pedro -- Tha
Olin and John Pedro --
Thanks for the great presentation!
I especially appreciate the "contractual, reciprocal relationship" focus, and I've saved your paper for the next time I prepare a SL course.
I don't think your model "seems a bit pie in the sky" at all. In fact, to the contrary, the sustainability, community-member relationship building, logistical problems, and design and maintenance expectations are all part of the SL gig and should be deeply embedded in the students' experience, rather than avoiding them or "fixing" them out of the students' view. One of my favorite SL-reflection questions is, why do these enduring logistical problems in community-based projects even exist? What forces allow them to endure? What is it about the nature of academic-community collaborations that make them so difficult to pull off?
I (barely) maintain a collection of web-based SL projects -- mostly for SL workshops/handouts -- that students in some of my courses have worked on: http://www.composing.org/projects/servicelearning/
And thanks, Virginia, for the TK3 multimedia author software reference -- inspiring!
Michael
definitely good for creating new website
I should say that I would definitely agree that creating a website for an organization that doesn't have a web presence seems a reasonable goal. It's analyzing and revising existing websites where things get difficult. The hard part for students would be implementing changes to improve an existing site without deprecating what already works well on a site (unless the site is very poorly done).
good point
I didn't think that part thorough, the revision of existing websites. I guess part of the research process would be determining if students could meet the needs of a revision. I guess that while something could be working well, it may still not fit the needs of the organization. But you're right. It would be hard to implement changes to a site. I'm not sure how to address that, in practical terms.
Bradley
Re: Sustainability
This is a challenge, to be sure. The development of training materials can't always be related to the course content, and pairing classes (for example, a web design course could work with a computer documentation course) adds complexity. I definitely agree the projects should begin as early as possible, and am making changes in the ways I schedule service and experiential learning projects for that very reason.
I can see where a campus-wide service learning office would be a strong asset here: they could support the cross-semester connections which are difficult to produce in traditional courses.
cbd.