Guest posting to voced-coord email list. Item 1 of 15:

Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 07:51:12 +1000
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Janine Bowes
Subject: VocEd: Online guests - Program websites - how, when and most importantly why

Interested in websites/homepages for your programs?

Background
When we run VECO workshops, there is always substantial interest in knowing more about what is involved in establishing websites for programs. While this is not the focus of the workshops we were fortunate at the recent Sydney workshop (mid June) to have two coordinators who have developed substantial websites for their respective programs.

At the workshop they walked other coordinators through their websites and told their stories about how they had come about. The workshop feedback indicated that this was a very popular session so I have asked them to tell their stories online and to address some specific questions.

When we discused this at the workshop held in Melbourne last week, there was considerable debate about the longer term issues of maintenance and the core question of WHY:
"why would you have a website for your program ? - what's the point?" "we had $1000 to build a website, paid a consultant to do it for us but now it's a headache to maintain"

These are certainly questions worth thinking about.

About the online guests - Gary Stephenson and Lenny Eagles
Gary and Lenny have both been part of VECO for quite some time and attended the recent workshop in Sydney.

Gary Stephenson is the coordinator of St George Compact in Sydney and Lenny Eagles is from the Christian Community High School in Sydney which was featured in the June issue of the ASTF Networker newsletter.

Gary and Lenny will share their stories about developing a website for their programs.

Please help to build the collective view of this area by contributing your stories too as well as raising issues and questions.

Janine Bowes
VECO Project Officer