Tyler Hunt

Last spring, I was involved with a technical writing class based around the service learning approach, meaning that we were required to work with an organization in the community in order to foster a sense of civic responsibility through alternative pedagogy. This semester long project resulted in the production of a professional-grade promotional video for the Boys & Girls Club of Pinellas Park. Developed for use as a tool for the Teen Center to share its experience with other clubs around the country, and improve awareness of youth leadership, the video has most recently found its way to Armenia where it has inspired a group of teens there to start their own youth-led organization.

When Blake Scott, the instructor of that technical writing course, contacted our team about presenting our project at the first annual Service Learning Showcase at UCF, Mark, Erik, and I went for it, and after today are glad we did. It was great fun spending time together once again working on project into the wee hours of the night. It was great fun putting together a tri-fold presentation board, a web site demo, a DVD, and a last minute document. It was great fun manning our table as judges flew by on a whirlwind tour of the twenty-six participants. We knew our project looked good. We knew a couple of the judges were impressed. But, based on the evaluation criteria, it seemed that other projects may have had an advantage. When the winners of third and second place passed by without our names being called, we had mostly ceded our defeat, and then were astonished to hear our project called for first place. It’s still hard to believe, but we honestly had the best project there. In the words of Mark, “Dude, we rock.”