Guest posting to voced-coord email list.
Item 7 of 15:

Date:Fri, 24 Jul 1998 12:38:46 +1000
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Lenny Eagles
Subject: Re: VocEd:Gary Stephenson(Introduction-ONLINE)

Greetings to all Veco Collegues,

Thank you for the invite to be a co-guest on-line with Gary. I have found the VECO list a great support, even when just tracking discussions in silence. I hope that I can in some small way provide some insight and encourage to others over the next week or so.

Thank you Janine for the introduction. The June ASTF Networker did give a brief outline of our cluster and a visit to our Traineeships homepage has access to documentation of both our pilots for 1998/1999 and our plans for 1999/2000.

I am the cluster coordinator for the Sydney Christian Community Schools(CCS) Vocational Education Cluster (1998/1999) which includes 7 CCS high schools across Sydney. In 1999 we will be moving from this initial cluster to the Sydney Christian Schools Vocational Education Cluster which will include 15 high schools across Sydney.

I am based at Christian Community High at Regents Park. This is my 11th year at CCHS where I have been the PD/H/PE coordinator and Careers Adviser. Over the last 3 years my position have moved toward being the schools Vocational Education coordinator responsible for the things listed in the Voced Briefcase:

http://www.cchs.nsw.edu.au/voced

and the Career Ed program within PD/H/PE. Part of my careers load has been taken by the Studies coordinator.I still have a Yr.9 and Yr.10 PD/H/PE class (8 periods a fortnight in total.

My current position arose out of our school's entry into voced when in 1994 we put in place a "Hospitality Management" voced course as a School Designed Board Endorsed course 1yr./1unit that was delivered off site by Mission Employment Services who had the course VETAB credentialled. In 1996, as our BOS credentialling began to close in the shadow of the dual credentialled CEC's, I obtained ASTF funding to move on with voced. Out of the support from ASTF we moved into the Cluster of CCHS schools in Sydney with our pilot school based part time traineeships that commenced this year (read all about in the download off the Traineeships Homepage).

It was within this move from our voced initiative at CCHS toward the cluster of Christian Community Schools working together to provide voced that the website "evolved". In 1996 CCHS Regents Park set up a school home page within which I had a "Careers" section. At that stage I gave " text" to another teacher who figured out how to put it on the school website. When the cluster became a reality so did the "Voced Briefcase" emerge and from the middle of 1997 through to early 1998 exploded into what you now see ie still part of the CCHS homepage and yet a site in itself.

My initial (1997) idea for the Voced Briefcase was to provide a way to communicate to both the cluster and anyone interested some details of our initiaives as they became reality. I also was looking for a way to give our students spread thinly across Sydney some kind of sense of identity and that they were actually a part of something.

Given the way that the Voced Briefcase has grow so quickly I have been on a very steep learning curve on lots of levels..technical issues of what a website can do (a real moving playing field) through to issues of its place within our cluster and our school based traineeships (from administration and funding through tothings like exploring chat facilities and distance ed options. Yes if I to do this again I would do things differently...some of these things I expect will be canvassed over the next week between myself, Gary and everyone's questions, comments etc

Thanks again and I await to hear from you. :-)

Sydney Christian Schools Vocational Education Cluster
Mr Lenny Eagles - Cluster Coordinator
Christian Community High School
59 Regent Street, Regents Park NSW 2143
Phone (02) 9644 5144 Fax (02) 97437082 Mobile 0417426628
e-mail voced@cchs.nsw.edu.au
http://www.cchs.nsw.edu.au/voced School-based Part-Time Traineeships