Learning to serve, Serving to learn

Service-learning—and it’s companion community-based research—is based on the idea that coursework is relevant to real-world communities. Rather than assigning students hypothetical tasks in a laboratory environment, local organizations are incorporated into the curriculum to provide a grounded context for educational projects. In return, the community partners receive free labor and the outcomes of the student work. I guest blog on the subject for Monroe County Councilperson Sophia Travis.

I need look no further than Sophia Travis for an example of what benefit technology has brought to me. I met Sophia through the local RootsCamp unconference I arranged for Bloomington after the fall elections, but I don’t think that event would have made it past the day dreaming stage without email and the Web.

Sophia is one of the pioneering elected officials making use of the transparent benefits of Web 2.0 tools—she blogs. She blogs about living in the community, about her own personal interests and activities, and she blogs about her day (and night) job as a Monroe County Councilperson. The world in which I want to live has all parts of government communicating in that kind of open manner.

This week—after encouraging her to come to campus to see the project presentations from the first-year master’s students on the 24th-26th—Sophia asked me to guest blog about the community-campus partnerships integral to the HCI design course taught by Eli Blevis. I hope the plug for the student work and service-learning in general will generate some (not overwhelming) foot traffic when they start clicking on presentation slides next week.

Thanks for sharing your space, Sophia.

This is a busy time of year for the Informatics community, but I’ll pass along the presentation schedule here, too, in case there are those who can make the trip.

TUESDAY, APRIL 24th – Library 033
4:00-4:30p CAPE
4:30-5:00p Monroe County Historical Society
5:00-5:30p Mathers Museum
5:30-6:00p Mathers Museum

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25th – Woodburn Hall 101
4:00-4:30p Buskirk-Chumley Theater
4:30-5:00p Humanetrix
5:00-5:30p CATS

THURSDAY, APRIL 26th – IU Library 033
4:00-4:30p Non-profit Alliance
4:30-5:00p BEAD
5:00-5:30p Sustainability City Initiative

Aw shucks!
Too kind of you—I’m so cheered by having a chance to share a bit about what you are involved with! And I’m looking forward to next week’s events.

I have to tell you about a funny coincidence; today when I uploaded your entry to pin-the-tail I added two new “categories.” The first is “Service Learning” and the other “Town Gown.” I nearly didn’t add the latter but for no strong reason, thought, “well, it’s a term I often hear uttered…what the heck.”

Then I went to get my hair cut for the first time since last November…

While there I picked up a copy of an odd “self-published book” (by Author House–a locally based company, incidentally the recipient of tax abatement—) by a Professor Blaise Cronin. He muses about his perspective of “town gown” and one entire chapter is devoted to slamming blogs & bloggers…interesting counterpoint.

Cronin’s self-published book is titled, “Bloomington Days, Town and Gown in Middle America.” It is dedicated, “for Ken Gros-Louis.”

I’m especially puzzled by a paragraph on p. 9 that describes Kirkwood as the Rive Guache of Bloomington…and his statement that Bloomington “to be blunt, does not rock.”

Nonetheless, nothing in Cronin’s little diary style “tell all” throws a wet blanket on the blogosphere…the book is quaint—who would’ve thought a Professor would do something so pedestrian by self-publishing? He really oughtta blog instead though, don’tcha think?

Three cheers for you for laying the foundations for community-campus partnerships…and for being a fun spirit in the blogosphere…do you know how I can get in touch with Ensign Redshirt?

By Kevin Makice

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