Service Learning Report

William S. Hart Union High School District

Wendy Gray
CST 361 Service Learning
Dr. Eric Tao
25 August 2016

Wendy Gray, Service Learning Report, 25 August 2016 1

 This summer, I got the chance to work with Roslyn Denny at the William S. Hart
High School District (Hart District) to develop a means for curriculum to be shared easily
and efficiently with the appropriate faculty members and students. Along the way, I
learned how to more successfully develop and execute a project and understand how to
serve a community with my work.
Roslyn Denny, who is the Math Curriculum TOSA (Teacher on Special
Assignment) for the district, had identified a desire for an efficient Google Drive and
website infrastructure to organize the districts curriculum for teachers and other faculty
as well as the students themselves. My two Associates degrees in Mathematics and
Computer Science, along with the five years using Google Drive and Scripts in my job
working for a Wendys franchise seemed to be particularly useful in this situation.
We began by identifying the specifications for my time, and identified three
infrastructures, one for standard curriculum, one for teachers to share new materials,
and one for students to access study materials, with training materials and smaller jobs
to be done as needed. I first implemented a folder hierarchy in Google Drive that allows
for curriculum to be easily located, divided by subject, then class, unit, module, et
cetera. Sharing presented another problem, since each structure required differing
levels of viewing and editing protection, and if done individually, would take significant
time to maintain in the future. To avoid this, I researched and implemented the use of
Google Groups to keep user changes at one place instead of each different section of
the Drive hierarchy. Google Sites proved instrumental in developing the student
infrastructure, as it could easily link with the existing Hart website. Although this
particular task is not fully complete, I will continue to work with Roslyn to make it a
reality. During this time, I designed and implemented a few smaller tools, such as a
Table of Contents Google Document that can automatically catalog a class folders
subfolder hierarchy with hyperlinks to further enable teachers to locate and access
curriculum quickly and efficiently. I also created cheat sheet visual instructions so that
any of the faculty would be able to use these things.

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 Public school teachers are part of a community that is continually overlooked,
working long past school hours, with educations and degrees that otherwise could mean
higher paying jobs, to teach children that often do not want to learn, in the name of
growing and developing the next generation. Simply speaking, they do it because they
love to teach. Technology today offers many tools in making this job easier, leaving the
teacher more time to focus on their students learning experience. However, often,
teachers do not have the resources or time to take advantage of such technology. I had
the privilege to assist in alleviating that; all the while serving some of the same teachers
who taught me in high school, which helped me get where I am today.
I learned a few things during the summer, working at the Hart District. First of all,
its very important to assess all the levels of technological know-how in the community
that will be using what you develop. Multiple times, I had to go back and adjust the
cheat sheet instruction guides that I created to accommodate for lower levels of
understanding how things like browsers and file structures work. I also learned that I
could set up sophisticated things with Google Drive, Groups, and Scripts, but it would
be almost worthless if the proper people didnt know how to use it in the future. I had to
allow for the expansion of the infrastructures and teach Roslyn how to successfully do
so. I didnt want to leave anything in place that would become obsolete anytime soon,
such as the Table of Contents document, which I altered to work with any folder
hierarchy, not just the ones I specifically set up.
I have a few recommendations for future students who would want to do a project
similar to mine. Again, find out up-front what the lowest level of tech expertise will be
for the people you will be serving. Not having to go back and change things to suit will
save quite some time in developing a project efficiently. I also recommend that you
consider what the organization will be doing with your project after youre done with your
service learning with them. If theyre going to want to expand it, then make sure you
leave it open to do so, and capable of doing so. Make sure someone knows enough to
teach to others and can troubleshoot problems that may arise. Ensure that you test on

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all user levels (such as admin, teacher, student, etc.) to verify that things work; dont just
assume that they will.
Working with the Hart District worked out quite well for me; it was wonderful to
work locally and with some familiar faces from my high school years. Roslyn, after
hearing about my experience with Google Drive, quickly and efficiently laid out what she
had in mind that I could accomplish, but was very open and enthusiastic about ideas
that I had to improve upon her thoughts. Throughout the whole experience, she
showed great appreciation for what Id set up, with an eagerness to learn how to do it
herself. She proved to be quite flexible with the project schedule and was happy to
accommodate my suggestions to try new things.
Working with the Hart District this summer proved to be beneficial for me on
multiple points. I learned better ways to manage a project, as well as have a better
appreciation for teachers, who do it for the sake of teaching. I look forward to utilizing
such realizations in my future career.

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