Have You Finished Your Service Hours?
Students looking to log their service learning hours may have recently noticed a major change: Mitty’s service learning was logged through a website called Filemaker.mitty.com until the religious studies department decided to transition to a new resource. The new tracker is Mobileserve, a platform that allows for easier tracking, verification, and engagement.
Discussion about a new system was triggered by technical issues: glitches in the previous tracker, like freshmen not being able to log on, for example; and the software being outdated and in need of updates. Campus Ministry Service Coordinator Mrs. Shannon McLeod took the lead on the transition by researching multiple solutions, considering experiences of various teachers familiar with other logging platforms, and discovering Mobileserve. For students, the change may seem trivial, but the transition emerged from months of thought and collaboration between administrators, religious studies teachers, and the IT department to choose a new program fit for Mitty’s community.
Aside from the practical benefits of Mobileserve’s recent and updated software, Campus Ministry and the religious studies department hope that the new platform will allow students to engage deeper with their service. Three unique features of Mobileserve provide this opportunity: students are asked to provide a supervisor signature completed on their mobile device for each date of service, are alerted about local service opportunities, and can reflect on their time using the “Tell Your Story” or photo uploading option. Students can even see what their friends are up to, sign up for opportunities together, and collaborate to support their community. Through these features, students connect with supervisors, manage their service commitments, and contribute to specific causes that they care about.
By pushing service learning into a more intentional and conscious contribution rather than a simple, school-mandated requirement, Campus Ministry hopes that students will turn to reflection. This includes more deeply considering the needs of the local community and thinking back on takeaways from the service learning experience. Ms. Elizabeth Ekman, a religious studies teacher, hopes that students will be able to consider the question: “what are you passionate about and how does that pertain to your own service experience?” Religious studies teachers hope to integrate in-class discussion to support such reflection, creating a space where students can openly share causes that matter to them. They can also consider their contributions to the community, as sharing with peers and verbalizing experiences can provide an added depth to the significance of service and engagement with the community. Overall, Mobileserve is an opportunity to uplift service learning as not only a present experience, but also as one for reflection.
Even though this transition has several benefits, change can be a difficult process that takes time. One change is that students have lost the ability to view summative hours from previous years due to the different platforms. Another is that students might initially find it difficult to adjust to the supervisor signature requirement, as they must have their mobile devices ready to log the service on the spot. Yet with this learning curve comes support: while students and faculty need to learn their way around the new platform, Mrs. McLeod says she “always makes [herself] available” and keeps her door open for anyone with questions.
The transition to Mobileserve was spurred by practical reasons, but Mrs. McLeod and Ms. Ekman are hopeful for its potential. While it introduces new features and sparks engagement, it also requires the patience of everyone to adjust. It is unknown how long this platform will be in use, but Mobileserve brings its share of new challenges and successes to an evolving Mitty community.