Talk:Outreach

Outreach Comments

• Dave McFarland (29th, July, 2009): Another thing to consider is how we craft an outreach message for the different audiences for the curriculum. I've taught at several undergraduate colleges in the US, as well as in what are sometimes called "continuing education programs." One of the primary goals of these programs is to train students for the workforce. With that in mind, creating "the business case" for a Web curriculum is important. You can talk about "web standards" until you are blue in the face, but unless you can prove that the curriculum we're promoting will actually make someone more likely to get hired than someone who was taught with that institution's current curriculum, you won't get any traction. This is especially true for the community colleges here in the states, that very much have the goal of vocational education for the workplace. Getting buy in from Web firms, and larger corporations can do a lot to help with this. For example, if someone at a major corporation or Web development firm said they'd be more likely to hire someone who was trained with the goals and curriculum OWEA promotes, that would be a huge help in getting the curriculum adopted in colleges.

• Chris Mills (31st July 2009): You are so right Dave - great thinking here. I think a clear business case for the web education standards is one of the first things we should craft, as part of the outreach.