Stetson University uses Web 2.0 tools in a variety of ways to enhance its Bonner Scholars Program and campus service infrastructure.

Overview of resources used:

• Wiki (pbwiki.com)
• Video (YouTube)
• Pictures (Photobucket, Flikr)
• Maps (Google)
• Docs (Google)
• Calendar (Google)
• Blogs
• Facebook
• Skype
• Podcasts

Bonner Scholars Program Wiki

The "Stetson Bonner Wiki" is used as a means of networking each student in the Stetson Bonner Scholars Program with one another, as well as providing a centralized location for all information pertaining to their Bonner Scholars Program. Information on the wiki includes:

• Requirements and expectations for each class-level in Bonner
• Student "families" listings
• Student profiles that each student can edit
• Google calendar for all Bonner/service-related events
• Archive of multimedia resources (including pictures and videos from trainings and retreats)
• Database of community partners and trips/opportunities (including all contact information, some pictures and videos, volunteer needs, programs/services offered to the community, etc. - all interfaced within a Google Map)
• Important forms for requesting funds or applying for student leadership positions,
• Links to useful websites (including BWBRS)
• Student Handbook

This semester, we have started to have Bonner students who are studying abroad maintain a more active presence with our students on campus (and vice-versa). At our weekly Training & Enrichment Activities, we allow students who are abroad to participate by watching/listening to our activities via Skype. We are also building an archive of our weekly activities, and will be posting documents, videos and podcasts of these activities on our wiki; students who have to miss an activity due to being abroad (or even academic/health-related reasons) would be able to access these so that they don't miss out on what the other Bonners are learning. Students who are abroad will also start maintaining a blog this year, which will let them reflect on their experiences while sharing their thoughts with our students who are not abroad. 

Community Asset Mapping

Each year, our first-year Bonner students conduct a Community Asset Mapping project as part of their exploration phase. In years past, students have printed out physical maps of three communities we have strong partnerships with (Pierson, Spring Hill and DeLand), and divided into three groups to 'map' community agencies. However, students' work was never put to good use - their results yielding little to no new information each year.

This year, we wanted to ensure that the students' work would be used in a meaningful way. Thus, students were asked to plot their findings on a Google Map instead. On this Google Map, each agency would be marked by a graphic representing a broader category of interest that that agency belongs to (ie: schools would be marked similarly, community centers would be marked similarly, homeless advocacy agencies would be marked similarly, etc.). When clicking on a marker that denotes an agency, a box would appear that gives a profile of that agency, including its address, contact information, hours of operation, key contact people, programs and services offered to the community, volunteer needs, service-learning opportunities, students who volunteer at that site (with links to their student profiles for their contact information and volunteer schedules), and multimedia content (including Photobucket/Flikr pictures and YouTube videos of the agency). 

Click here to see one of our CAM maps. (Soon, we will merge all of our area maps together. Perhaps all members of our Bonner network could put such maps together to create a comprehensive national map for assets, needs and contact information for non-profits across the country? That would be a great project for a summer intern at the Foundation.)

Our student staff in our Center for Service-Learning coordinate this project, and have started to put all of the collected information from the CAM project onto our Stetson Bonner Wiki. By putting it on the wiki, our Bonner students will be able to use this to find service opportunities that fit their needs and interests. Best of all, all of our Bonner students have access to editing this, so they can edit any information they find to be inaccurate or outdated - or even add new agencies to this Google Map database. It is intended that students will continue to add on to the existing database each year. Once our Bonner students work out the final kinks with this system, we will launch it on our main Stetson website as a resource for all students, faculty, staff and community partners to access - which will fill a huge infrastructural need in our community and campus.

Campus Service Infrastructure

Our Department of Community Engagement, housed in our Center for Service-Learning (CSL), uses Web 2.0 tools in a variety of ways. Our CSL staff includes two full-time staff members and five work-study student staff members. As they all work on a variety of projects together, they created a CSL Wiki. While the wiki is still a work-in-progress, it currently has each student staff member's position description and hour log. We hope to launch this wiki publicly once we complete the CAM Google Map project, so that students across campus will have a good reason to use to the CSL Wiki. Further, the staff uses common Google tools (including Docs and Calendar) when the word-processing, chart-making and calendar-creating capabilities of the wiki reach their limit. Finally, student service organizations have dozens of Facebook groups that they use to market service-related events across the entire campus with great success; our Into-the-Streets (ITS) group, for example, attracts over 100 volunteers to many of their ITS days with a combination of Facebook marketing as putting a few flyers/banners around campus.

Also, our Center for Community-Based Research launched a Stetson CBR Wiki to promote collaboration between students, faculty, staff and community partners. Though it is also a work-in-progress, it aims to link campus resources to community needs - serving as a "clearinghouse" of sorts for anybody looking to be involved with community-based research projects. Like the CAM Google Map, we hope that this will take off and be used by the community - and have started promoting it with our closest community partners so that they can have an active role in shaping the resource.