Robert Koch is assigned to respond to this proposal.

Olin and John:

I hope I'm responding in the right direction. I've more or less broken this down and responded to it at the sentence level --

"We propose an e-service learning model in which students serve the community through their writing." All service learning, as I understand, should serve the community. This sentence, for me, simply reiterates what you've already said and what I already know from the title and the previous sentence. Could you expand on how your e- model differs from other models?

"Students then evaluate the organization’s Web site, if it has one, and seek to answer two questions:" Up to this point, you've described a good basic course of action for assessing the situation of the organization. At this point however, you are allowing for an either/or option. Are there any other possibilities? More importantly, are these possibilities you give the students, or do you let their assessment of what is going on emerge from their observations? My inclination is toward the latter, but your student population may require more structure.

"Does it merely promote an agenda or does it also seek to foster a network of individuals with common interests and goals?" Again, I'm not sure that you won't find sites that fall in between your extremes. In this particular sentence, I'm worried about the word "merely." There's a political consideration here, which is if the word "merely" will turn off your community participants, especially in the text of an "agenda"? You don't want to do that. It may be important to rethink the options here, and the phrasing of these options.

"Student writing can serve the organization, and thus the campus or larger community, in one of two ways." I think you mean to have a colon at the end of this sentence. I also wonder about the either/or option again. I may be versed in technology, and I very much like your focus here, but I'm not as versed in service learning, and so I wonder if this limited focus isn't created by the parameters of the course itself? It doesn't appear to me that students are allowed to travel beyond your set limitations. Is that an assignment requirement? What do they do if their discoveries lead them to an issue beyond the borders you have established?

"In our presentation, we will discuss projects that, we will argue, fall under the rubric of e-service learning." Ok, so based on what you've written, e-service learning involves students writing online or assessing online writing for a community entity, right? I don't know that anyone can really argue that fact, so I wonder if it isn't safe to go ahead and presume we'll agree with you that this is e-service learning. If you make that (safe) assumption, then you can refocus the presentation away from arguing what the thing is, and toward exploring why and how you have set it up as you have, and how it went off in (and out of!) class.

Overall, I like what you've given readers to chew on, and I'm anxious to learn more about service learning and about this presentation from your response. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to participate!

Robert Koch Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Gordon College
rkoch@gdn.edu
770-358-5092

Thanks, Robert. We hope this comment illuminates our proposal.

Some service learning projects maintain a separation between the activities of performing service and producing writing. In other words, student writing is subsequent to, and reflective on, service learning experiences. Our e-service learning model combines these activities into one in order to provide students with writing scenarios in which they encounter real audiences. In fact, the model could alternatively be labeled “e-service writing.”

Student assessment of an organization’s Web site can assume various forms, depending on the student’s observations of the site’s strengths and weaknesses. Generally, student assessment will take one or a combination of two approaches. The first is a traditional rhetorical analysis, where the student analyzes the site’s rhetorical elements and strategies and makes a claim concerning the persuasiveness of the site. The second approach is an evaluative argument, where the student analyzes the site’s accessibility, interactivity, and networking potential and makes a claim as to how effectively the site fosters among its users a sense of community bound by common interests and equips this community with the means to achieve its goals. This approach assumes, of course, that the site aims to promote community identity and action. The validity of these assumptions will be determined by the student.

Student writing can serve the organization and, more broadly, the campus or community in ways that correspond to their approach to the organization’s Web site. Students who performed a rhetorical analysis of the site can submit to the organization a detailed proposal for reconstructing the site with a view to enhancing its persuasiveness. Students who evaluated the site can submit to the organization a detailed proposal for reconstructing the site with a view to enhancing its effectiveness. If students have the skills and resources to reconstruct the site themselves, the instructor may decide to add a third phase to the project, moving from proposal to action.

If one goal of e-service learning is to provide students with writing scenarios in which they encounter real audiences, another goal is to explore the limitations and affordances of Web sites in achieving an organization’s rhetorical goals. Our model takes as its starting point a belief in a Web site’s importance to a community and a community’s importance to a Web site. That is to say, we assume that every organization aims, to a greater or lesser degree, to foster a sense of community, and that a Web site is a valuable tool for accomplishing this goal. If an organization constitutes one link within a given community, and the site’s audience forms another, our model seeks to encourage students to become a further link within the community by strengthening the other two links.

Several instructors at the University of Texas have developed assignments along the lines of our model, although they differ in some particulars. We are interested in finding out about projects at other institutions that might inform our conception of e-service learning.

Olin Bjork and John Pedro Schwartz
olin.bjork@mail.utexas.edu, jpedro@mail.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin

The "e-service learning" seems to have promising possibilities for sharing university resources with the community in which the university lives; this kind of crossover is too rare. When I taught a service learning course, my students sometimes had a hard time finding out about an organization online because the organization's website was out of date or in its beginning stages; other websites are up to the minute. The development of the website often depends on the audience that the organization serves and how it interacts with them.

I am wondering about that audience factor and student involvement. Specifically, I'm not sure that students can become "familiar" with an organization through tours, research, or interviews. I would be much more comfortable with a project that required students to work with the organization. This kind of contact also creates a level of responsibility and relationship between student and organization that will help the student to take the project seriously and to understand the work their project should accomplish.

Similarly, in your response to Robert Koch's post, you explain, "This approach [the evaluative argument] assumes, of course, that the site aims to promote community identity and action. The validity of these assumptions will be determined by the student." While I think it is a good project to ask a student to evaluate the website, I'm not convinced that students (or even teachers), who are not part of the population in and around the organization, can assume this level of 'real world' authority. A student's evaluation might overlook a crucial factor for the organization's population, or the questions the student bases her evaluation on might be irrelevant to the organization. Alternatively, the student might provide new insight that the organization has not had time to consider. One of the great benefits (and challenges) of service learning is collaboration between students and the organization. For example, students might write up an evaluation of the site and then present it to or share it with an agency mentor then listen to the mentor's response to the evaluation and even the mentor's own evaluation of the site. It might even be useful at this point to have the student add an epilogue to the evaluation paper to indicate the shifts or differences raised by this interaction. Similarly, the building of a useful site would require organizational involvement. The level of involvement with students that organizations can take on varies by time of year and by organization, so these relationships will require some initial planning and check-in with the organization.

One option that might achieve the kind of openness Robert Koch refers to in inviting students to make their own projects and project parameters, is to 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. All of this work would require students to consider the relationship between the community and technology as well as the limits of technology while developing collaborative relationships between students and organizations that will benefit both. Would this work within the rubric of e-service learning?

This is an exciting proposal, and I look foward to reading more about it.

Kristen Hogan
University of Texas at Austin

Thanks for your comment Kristen!

We agree with you that there should be collaboration between the students and the organization in all stages of the writing process. Ideally, we envision more reciprocity than just a simple quid pro quo.

So far, we have described the model in rigid terms in order to communicate what is novel about it and to avoid overwhelming readers with possibilities and the practical considerations thereof. Instructors who believe that the only way to truly familiarize students with an organization is to have them serve the organization in a traditional manner can build that requirement into their projects. A lot will depend on how much time instructors want to allocate to each phase of the project.

Your last paragraph is provocative and boundary-stretching. We had been thinking primarily about an organization's virtual presence, but all of the projects you mention could be defined as e-service. Perhaps students and organizations should play as large a role as the instructor in shaping the project parameters.

Olin Bjork and John Pedro Schwartz
olin.bjork@mail.utexas.edu, jpedro@mail.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin

Olin and John, In your earlier post, you mentioned this:

"The development of the website often depends on the audience that the organization serves and how it interacts with them."

I would also suggest that the awareness of their real and intended audiences, and their audience's access are also issues. For example, the town where I live has a Chamber of Commerce website that hasn't been updated in almost a year. Is this a function of time, interest, resources, or audience, or a lack of audience? It could be audience, but it could also be, as Kristen notes, I think, external parameters. These parameters shape the context for the message, which we all agree that students need to study just as much as they need to study the text of the message itself. Getting everyone actively involved in the construction of the assignment (would a needs assessment help here?) might be an interesting and important way of helping them understand the context in which these particular texts occur.

Also, thank you for that clarification about how people conduct different service learning activities in your response to my initial comments. I found those very helpful in explaining what you are trying to do.

Rob

Robert Koch Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Gordon College
rkoch@gdn.edu