FP2 Service Learning: Conducting a Mobile App Worskshop for the elderly in the community

Pre-Reflection

In my personal perception, Service-Learning (S-L) is a form of experimental education that supports deep learning. Through Service-learning activities, I will be able to apply my knowledge and skills, which I have learned at school, to practical environments in order to enhance my understanding of class materials and to contribute to the community at the same time. As a student, I would benefit from reflecting on what I have learned in exchange for valued service to community members. It's a great opportunity for me to gain hands-on learning experience, develop civic engagement and interpersonal skills, especially in the areas of communication, leadership, and empathy.

When I know I need to do a Service-Learning project, I was really excited because I always wanted to get a chance to experience teaching. I feel like this is going to be a unique experience as most of the time, service learnings are conducted in a real-life environment, but this time we 're teaching it online. I also feel that this Service-Learning would test my understanding by seeing if the skills and knowledge I have gained in school can be applied to the real world.

The purpose of this service-learning program is to develop interpersonal skills and to have a positive impact on the community. As an introvert, I am always afraid to talk to a huge crowd, and through this program, I hope to improve my confidence and communication skills that will help me develop better public speaking skill.

Post-Reflection (after the S-L Project)

Specific Learning Outcome

I think the experience of this Service-Learning has taught me how to properly evaluate a situation. It has also taught me how to get into a real-life situation and think objectively and logically about it. I have learned to be more patience with the seniors and developed confident in terms of public speaking. Teamwork is also very important because my partner and I must be on the same page when we are presenting. I think everyone actually benefit and learn something in their own way.

Description of overall experience

At the beginning of this project, we were told that we will be conducting this service online through online platform because of the pandemic. I was excited but scared at the same time because this is my first time doing an online teaching. Our plan was to divide our class to a group of 5 and have each group to focus on a class of 5-10 people. My group came up with an idea to have each group to create a slide for each topic and share it among us instead of each group having to do a slide for each topic. We believe by doing so will reduce the workload of the class and increase our efficiency. Thanks to my easy-going classmates, all of us agreed on the idea and each of the group choose a topic to work with.

My groupmates and I decided to pick Social Media as our topic to work on, I was quite confident about the slides and the information that my group and I provided because of how often we used social medias. We've divided our slides into different parts, and each of us chose which section we 're comfortable teaching about. Even though we are confident about the details and information we share, we googled most of it to avoid giving the wrong details to others.

Due to the unforeseen circumstances, the organizer wants us work on 2 slides instead as it is more beneficial for the elderlies. Our plans got changed, now we are working in a pair with 3-4 people in a class. I went to read the slides we are presenting the day before to ensure that I’m families with the slides.

I had been paired with Myron during the actual day of Service Learning. We agreed to share the workload with each one of us to take 1 PowerPoint slide. He went through the Basic Smartphone Usage slides while I take the Online Payment slides. Even though we are not close, I have a very nice experience working with him. We helped each other to add points and clarifications as needed throughout the meeting. The good thing about us being a pair is that he is an Android user while I am an IOS user. This really helps us to present ourselves better to the elderly, as most elderly people use the android, and it would be hard for me to show it through IOS. Overall, we spend more time responding to their enquiries about technologies and recommending mobile applications. I was glad to be able to teach this without a problem. The elderlies are more advanced in technologies than I thought.

Academic Learning

Other than good interpersonal skills, good knowledge and experience of modern technologies are needed in order to conduct this Service-Learning. We must be kept up and familiarise with the technology so that we can answer to the elderly’s enquiries.

I make use of the technologies skills I have to explain to them many things. One of it was telling them the benefits of PayLah as they are still unsure about it. I explained to them that PayLah is a well-known modern payment system app that allow convenient of payment around Singapore. It allows payment through QR code for places such as hawker and taxis, I also believe that this will be our future way of making payment.

I feel like the seniors are pretty up to date with the technologies, but I still manage to teach them many new things. They are still pretty uncertain about the security of online payment, but I manage to explain to them and clear some of their doubts. I also taught them how to protect themselves when making online payment. I believe that they have learnt what I’ve taught them because they seems to be more convince and might try using it some days after telling them the benefits.

Out of 10, I will give myself 8.5 on my performance. Even though I manage to teach them about technologies and answer to their enquiries, my confidence and explanation might not be as good. I feel like sometimes I explain it too complicated for their understand and I am quite awkward of the start. Other than that, I think I’m okay.

Civic Learning

The purpose of this service is to positive impact on the community. To be able engage with community and provide them with what we learned in school as a form of giving back to the community.

My role as a student is to ensure that I can be part of the country’s development as I am the next generation that will build and run the nation. The important thing is that I am able to give back to the community. I must learn to be responsible, develop communication skills and show care and consideration towards the others.

Personal Growth

After learning this service, I feel that I have become more patient and understanding towards older people with technology. I used to be impatient when my parents asked me about anything related to technology. Because of how advanced I am with technology, the way I explain it might not be easy for technology illiterate to understand. I’ve learned to give instructions in a clear and simple way for them to understand like using a lay-man term.

Serving online learning is not, after all, as scary. Although it is a lot harder to communicate with people online, teaching online has increased my confidence to talk to someone I do not know.

Conclusion (Articulation of Learning)

I learned that I need to be more patient and understand towards the senior when explaining to them about technologies. It was my first experience teaching and it is online. I have a wonderful and great time although I was quite scared at first. Throughout this experience, I have also become more confident in talking to other people I do not know. This will really help me in the future when I meet new people. School materials have taught me well and I am able to use it in real-world situations, but this experience enables me to think quickly and solve problems when faced. I really enjoyed this experience and hope to have more opportunities like this. It really does benefit me as a student and benefit them as elderly.