Blog Archives: January 2013

If you still have not yet registered to attend this year’s National Service-Learning Conference, Without Limits, here are ten great reasons why you should join NYLC and conference co-host Earth Force in Denver, CO:

1. The National Service-Learning Conference is the only national conference that convenes the whole service-learning field — adults, young professionals, and youth!
2. Affordable registration includes four days of professional development, meals, negotiated discounts on hotel rates, and memories to last a lifetime. (Check out the schedules and highlights).
3. Denver — the Mile High City — is a clean, young, and green city with more than 200 parks, dozens of tree-lined boulevards, and boasts 300 days of sunshine.
4. The Exhibit Hall is a bustling center of activity for you to win prizes, explore the Service-Learning Showcase, participate in on-site service-learning projects, and discover organizations that offer innovative products and services.
5. Networking opportunities give you a chance to meet young leaders, passionate educators, and global experts in education.
6. Volunteer sites, including the Day of Service in the Denver Children’s Corridor, have already been confirmed to give you a chance to serve the Denver community.
7. Learn from the best in the field during plenary and thought leader sessions, receptions, informal meetings, and nearly 100 workshops.
8. World-renowned speakers, including Reginald Dwayne Betts and Naomi Tutu, share the spotlight with youth emcees Danielle, Kaitlyn, and Jorge.
9. The Generator School Network® allows you to connect with participants before the conference begins, and will provide lasting resources from workshop presenters once it’s over.
10. NYLC is turning 30! Join us on Friday, March 15 for an NYLC 30th Anniversary dance party to celebrate three decades of work.

Have you attended in the past? Excited about joining us this year? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter, hashtag #NYLC13!

At NYLC we are celebrating Technology Month as we near Digital Learning Day, a national campaign that celebrates teachers and shines a spotlight on successful instructional practice and effective use of technology in classrooms across the country. NYLC is proud to be partners with the Alliance for Excellent Education in this exciting campaign.

During Technology Month, we’re recognizing the ability of technology to advance service-learning. Here are a few of the things we’re doing:

The Generator School Network is giving away a Kindle Fire to one lucky GSN member who updates their tech-focused service-learning project between January 1 and Digital Learning Day on February 6. Only tech-focused projects are eligible. GSN members are doing creative things with technology in service-learning, like connecting with their community through social media, or like Member of the Month Elissa Cottle, through a student-run newspaper.

Elissa is the GSN’s featured member for Technology Month, and is among the ever-expanding group of service-learning practitioners boldly embracing technology as a way to enhance their practice. As part of her afterschool project students, can learn about journalism and photography, exercising important skills the regular school day can’t always make time for. Interviewing students and staff on school issues, the digital publication they create serves student body, parents, and teachers alike. Elissa also encourages any young artists to submit cartoons and creative writing for publication.

“Helping students tap into their creativity opens the door to a fulfilling relationship with oneself,” Elissa said in describing her passion for service-learning. You can read more about Elissa's projects here.

NYLC is featuring technology-oriented resources this month. On Thursday, January 24, NYLC is hosting a webinar, Technology and Service-Learning: An Engaging Combination, in which we will explore the parallels between service-learning and technology, as well as specific technology tools that lend themselves to project-based learning and service. The session includes project examples from the field to show how technology can enhance reflection as well as direct, indirect, and advocacy forms of service. Webinars are free to attend, sign up today!

We also have recorded webinars available to watch any time, on integrating STEM and service-learning, or about online learning cohorts and professional learning communities.

This is a remarkable time for technology and for service-learning. We hope you will join NYLC and so many others across the service-learning field as we marshal these unique strategies for student success and engagement.

This September the Alliance for Excellent Education released a digital civic learning toolkit as part of its Digital Learning Day campaign. The Alliance developed this resource with the input of leading civic education groups which included NYLC, National Council for the Social Studies, the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and others.  The purpose of the toolkit is to support teachers and students by providing resources that demonstrate how technology can connect students to active civic learning experiences.  The resources in the toolkit, divided into three categories—digital simulations, media, and service-learning—help to combine the vast potential of technology with the limitless potential of students to make contributions to their communities and the world. 

Technology can transform the way students communicate, research, and learn. Technology has opened doors for students that would have been unimaginable just twenty years ago.  It is then no surprise that more teachers, schools, and community organizations are utilizing technology and digital learning to facilitate stronger service-learning and civic education experiences. 

The rate of change and the vast opportunities for students today is astounding.  This is most apparent to me as I reflect on my own service-learning experiences as a student 20 years ago. As part of a middle school civics course, I completed a service-learning project that analyzed the strengths of community organizations serving youth.  The local library wasn’t comprehensive enough to facilitate my research; it lacked a microfiche machine that would allow me to access media and journal articles. Therefore, my parents had to drive me half an hour to the library in the next town. At the library, my ability to conduct research was limited to a four hour window that stood between my work and my parents’ honking car.  When it came time to make the connection to a local community organization to do the service aspect of my service-learning, I had to use the Yellow Pages to find an organization, drive there during the weekend to meet people, and then complete the project.  To students today, this may sound like a description of education in the 1930s.  In reality, this seemingly old school educational experience was the norm for students in the 1990s. Fortunately, technology has significantly changed this reality. 

Technology provides students opportunities to engage in a whole new world of learning possibilities.  Today’s middle school students don’t have their research time limited by static texts or parents coming to pick them up.  Students today can do more than just research online—through digital simulations they can attain a better understanding of social issues and experiences encyclopedia texts could never provide.  Students no longer use microfiche machines to access media. Through digital media they can access media from around the world—as well as create their own through blogs and video.  Lastly, students are no longer limited to using the Yellow Pages to locate community partnerships; they can use the Internet to connect with partners in their community, and across the country and the world. Through these opportunities, technology empowers youth to find projects that meet their interests, ensures those projects are tied to important learning outcomes, helps identify higher quality partnerships, and supports deeper learning experiences. In these ways, this strategic use of technology reinforces the K-12 Service-Learning Standards of Quality Practice. 

Much like any other resource, technology is not a silver bullet and acquiring and using it isn’t an end in itself.  In other words, this isn’t just about giving kids iPads and calling it a day.  Teachers, schools, and community partners have to make strategic decisions on which investments in technology  best support student learning. Thoughtful investments in technology can create high quality learning opportunities that help students master the content and develop the skills essential to success in the 21st century.  The resources identified in the toolkit are just a few examples of high quality learning opportunities. We hope you find the resources in the toolkit useful and that you continue to help us add to the list so that more students can access these 21st century learning opportunities.   

Ace Parsi is a Policy and Advocacy Associate at the Alliance for Excellent Education