The Girl in the Community Service Learning Program

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Julian Agyeman Speaker Series 2012.
L. Hegberg (personal collection. March 23,2012)

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Sustainability Summit Discussion 2012.
L.Hegberg (personal collection. March 23, 2012)

Community Service Learning has been a great opportunity for me to get more involved with the organization I volunteer with, Sustain SU at the University of Alberta. ALES 204 is a class where I have learned how to use and put to use social media. I have learned how to be more effective with promotion and outreach for Sustain SU in regards to social media, specifically, on Facebook and Twitter. In ALES we were taught how to effectively search for people and organizations on Twitter and Facebook.This knowledge allowed me to go on Twitter and search for other campus sustainability organizations around the world. Connecting with similar organizations has been important to me for information, outreach and awareness purposes. I was able to compile a network of over seventy campus sustainability organizations and look at the ways they network with their followers (Twitter) and how they are successful in encouraging talk about sustainability. American University’s Office of Sustainability Twitter account had included us in their “#FollowFriday” shout-out tweet; I really like how they used recognition to thank the people that had chosen to follow them. I set out with a similar desire in mind, to recognize people who followed our account, and started “#WelcomeWednesday”. This is one of many things I was able to learn by properly using Twitter as a way to find similar users.

From Twitter, by L. Hegberg
(Personal Collection. March 23, 2012)

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Sustainability Summit 2012.
L.Hegberg (personal collection. March 23,2012)

Another role I was able to take on as a CSL volunteer was profiling, talking about and covering/attending sustainability or students union events. In ALES we learned that Twitter is an effective platform for promotion and conversation for events, people in one room can be connected together on Twitter given a specific hashtag or organization alias, (@uasusustain) for instance. I like fellow classmates blog post Confessions of a Twitter Skeptic because Brenda talks about the challenge of putting her thoughts into 140 characters. She says tweeting has allowed her to become more concise and to lose unnecessary words. I will use one of my tweets to explain how effective 140 characters can be.



From Twitter, by L. Hegberg (Personal Collection. March 23, 2012)

“Goodmorning! Happy #WorldWaterDay! Check out the UN site, link here. @water What positive effect will you have on water use today?”

In ALES I learned effective ways to encourage conversation and help inform our followers.

1.  The Hashtag: #. When I hashtag WorldWaterDay, I use no spaces so it is seen as one entity, this way when someone looks at our tweet they can click on the hashtag “#WorldWaterDay” and Twitter will compile tweets and users that have used the same hashtag in their tweet, and people can explore other people who are all talking about World Water Day.

2.   I added a link; a good, informative, working link is imperative if you want your followers to look further into what you are talking about. Links make information accessible.

3.   I directed the tweet. Directing a tweet involves adding someone’s Twitter alias to your tweet, in the example above I directed it to the user, “@water”, which is an organization on water. This directs users to the place where I may have gotten the information or to a place I feel is relevant. Directing also notified the user “@water” that I have mentioned him in my tweet, and they may retweet our tweet, spreading the word even further.

4.   I asked the question, “What positive effect will you have on water use today?” to encourage followers to reply to us and think about the question. If they reply, the tweet will be directed at us, “@uasusustain” and then people that follow them will be able to click on our alias and see what our organization is about.

The University of Alberta webpage regarding Community Service Learning states that

"through CSL:

• Students gain invaluable experience and develop personal, professional, and intellectual skills;
• Community partners gain the energies and capabilities of students and have the opportunity to be co-educators;
• Instructors gain an enlivened classroom, new perspectives on pedagogy, and links with community organizations."

Taking part in the CSL program with the help of our ALES instructors has helped me learn how to use social media to help raise awareness and encourage the community to become informed and get involved with non-profit organizations such as Sustain Students Union. I believe that that the organization and myself have gained the three things stated in the goals of CSL. I have gained experience in social media and communication, Sustain SU received a helping hand in their organization, and my CSL opportunity allowed me to make more connection to class.


References:
What is Community Service Learning (CSL)? (2012) Retrieved from http://www.csl.ualberta.ca/


Written by: Lina Hegberg
TA: Shannon Clarke
Lab: H8