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Preston / Reservoir Adult Community Education

PRACE

Case Study for TafeFrontiers

[case study] . . [context] . . [big projects] . . [at the beach] . . [snakes alive] . . (= computer club =) ~:~ [students - 'angela'] . . [- dave] . . [- connie] . . [- bruce] . . [teaching ludditism?] . . [recommendations] . . [(.. back to 'flexible learning week')] . . previous top of section next

“Learn: Sustain: Peer Train”

Preston Neighbourhood House Computer Club began when a group of people realised they had studied all the beginner classes, and still wanted to learn more. They taught themselves to build computers from old parts and continued to develop their software skills.

This was a large enough project to have a reference group supporting it, and one project worker with a strong background in multimedia and graphic design - Rachael Tempest. Rachael brought a whole range of new skills and development processes to PRACE. Coming from a graphic design/multimedia background, her methods of design were different from what the web designers at PRACE were used to.

» Survey the computer club for their needs, interests and goals
» Draw up a navigational plan for the site
» Create a range of different visual layout options in PhotoShop - for example tuning original photographic work with an illustrative filter
» "Slice" these images up to create web pages
» Edit the web pages in Dreamweaver
» Present this range of options to the computer club and to the reference group for feedback
» Build the site following the feedback and choices made

Rachael also engaged a web programmer, Dennis McGregor, to help her learn about the coding processes needed to build interactive pages on this site - using the "Perl" and "Javascript" scripting languages.

After consulting with them about the graphic design and navigation; and what would be useful content for the site, both as an Internet resource for hardware enthusiasts like themselves, and for teaching new members of the club.

The site was developed with the potential of containing vast resources that can be updated by the club themselves eg. a glossary of names and terms with over a 1000 entries and growing; a photo gallery of the hard drive parts; a guide to Melbourne’s prices for new and used computer hardware; a story about the guy who fried an egg on his CPU etc…

We then ran a series of workshops aimed at giving the Computer Club the skills and knowledge to take the site over independently. Workshop topics included copyright issues, Dreamweaver basics classes, effective search techniques and how to update the site database.

These workshops were so popular the club wanted to continue weekly classes in 2003! The site is up and operational, at http://computerclub.org.au/

http://
computerclub.org.au/

Case Study for TafeFrontiers

[case study] . . [context] . . [big projects] . . [at the beach] . . [snakes alive] . . (= computer club =) ~:~ [students - 'angela'] . . [- dave] . . [- connie] . . [- bruce] . . [teaching ludditism?] . . [recommendations] . . [(.. back to 'flexible learning week')] . . previous top of section next

* PageTurners * Snakes Alive! * English at the Beach *

How to contact us at Preston/Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE)

Physical: Merrilands Community Centre, cnr Asquith & Sturdee Streets, Reservoir, 3073.

Postal: PO Box 510
Reservoir, 3073.

Phone: 9462 6077
Fax: 9462 5077 (pleease check your address book we had this one wrong)

Email: office-at-symbol-prace.vic.edu.au
Web: prace.vic.edu.au