My Service Learning Project with the Intergenerational Computer Center

“A Positive Tomorrows first grader uses JumpStart on a computer at the Oklahoma City University Intergenerational Computer Center in Oklahoma City.” – NewsOK

This week is the climax, for lack of a better term, of my composition class this semester, the week of our service learning project with Oklahoma City University’s Intergenerational Computer Center. The ICC was established last year to offer free computer access to those of the local community who don’t have regular computer and internet access. The ICC also works with various public schools and children’s groups such as Boys and Girls Clubs and Positive Tomorrows. This week, the ICC is hosting various public school classes during their intersession to engage in learning activities.

I went Wednesday morning to put my time in helping out the young’uns at the ICC. In all honesty, I was expecting the whole ordeal to be much more labor-intensive than it turned out to be, but it still kept me on my toes. We were basically there to assist the students in their projects. If they ever had questions or couldn’t get something to work properly, we would give them pointers.

The students (around 3rd or 4th grade) began by writing poems based on the question “What if I was a rock star?”. They then took these poems and made them into storybooks using an online program called Kerpoof. (Check it out. It’s pretty fun.) The program does have a bit of a learning curve, so we had to help the children frequently with things like backgrounds, text boxes, and various other features (or in other words, functional literacy). Once the students got the hang of how Kerpoof worked, they really went to town. I observed a great deal of creativity going on. They all were using the same resources (same topic of poem, same program), yet each student’s finished product was vastly different from the next student’s. It was a truly amazing sight to see the students achieve advanced literacy with Kerpoof so quickly. There was one student in particular who managed to create the entire storybook without help, then proceeded to begin toying with the movie function of Kerpoof! I was astounded.

This experience has been an enjoyable one mainly because I didn’t do much. It’s not that I’m lazy or anything (although I am), but it delighted me to see these children being so independent. Once we helped them reach functional literacy, they managed to achieve great results all on their own. I was flabbergasted by their ingenuity. I am glad that I got to help these children exercise their creativity at the ICC this week. After all, creativity is an essential part of a good education.