Guest posting to voced-coord email list.
Item 11 of 15:

Date:Mon, 3 Aug 1998 18:07:45 +1000
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Tom March
Subject: VocEd: Re: Some Web Design Ideas

Jim and others interested in technology-infused service learning,

Jim wrote:
"Have you come across any other good examples of students using technology in authentic contexts/community settings to generate multiple benefits/outcomes?"

[Tom:]
I have to say that one of the best days I ever had as a "teacher" was when "Prophets" students 100 miles away presented their Web sites to the nonprofit organisations (this was done via videoconferencing). It was the classic "teacher as facilitator" scenario and this experience proved to me how valuable the approach is.

Nonprofit Prophets was based on a long-term project created by a teaching team I was on (one science teacher, one applied technology, and me in English). We never got a flashy name for the project, but what it involved was having student teams act as media consultants to actual nonprofits in the community (those in Nonprofit Prophets were at the other end of California). Students worked in teams of 6 where one pair created a brochure using Pagemaker, another pair created a poster using Canvas and SuperPaint, and the last pair created a set of desktop slides using Aldus Persuasion. The nonprofit reps worked with the students through meetings every few weeks, then served as a feedback panel when students unvailed their media campaigns in the school's little theater. The nonprofits were committed to actually using the students' products.

I guess I see technology-based products as being the thing that many schools can contribute because it's more "do-able" than a lot of the activities that require excursions or out of school time.

Just some ideas from a US perspective to VET.

Tom
__________________________________________
Tom March,
http://www.ozline.com
online content design & web strategies
from Australia's Southern Highlands

"There is nothing more important than the right rearing and education of children"

--Michel de Montaigne