[Yr7-10it] Google 'My Australia' competition

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Victor raises a very good point. It is one of the reasons why it is good to
support award schemes (3in6, programming, website etc) by subject
associations such as VITTA. As a rule they are generally non-commercial and
vendor neutral. Of course, this is still a tricky course for any group to
sail through with many grey areas but you can be assured that we openly
discuss these conflict of interest and integrity issues.

For 'commercial' competitions that I spot, generally I just pin the info on
the board, leave it on a desk or pass it on to anybody interested. I do not
mandate it for any of my classes. Of course this doesn't stop us using the
material or activity as a source of inspiration for something else or a
parallel activity.

Last week we had some fun using Inkscape to design some cool A3 campaign
posters for clearing land mines at our sister school, this stimulated enough
interest in a real fund raising drive. I'll admit to being inspired from the
cool poster I saw for on the Software Freedom day website mentioned by
Margaret and a related competition to design a similar T-Shirt for
SecondLife. ;-)

Regards Roland

On 27/07/07, victor rajewski <askvictor at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/27/07, Kent Beveridge <kbeveridge at stbc.vic.edu.au> wrote:
> > Hey Roland, I got a flyer about this comp 'too!
> > Qn..I wonder if they accept scanned images that kids create such as
> photos of work or similar or does it have to be computer generated art? Got
> the info from the graphics dept teacher..it looks like it could be fun to
> enter! I wonder where we could 'slot it in' in the VELS scope of
> things..'Creativity' perhaps, just a question of which level I spose.
>
> In fact I don't think they accept electronic copies (though you can
> print off your electronic artwork and submit it)
>
> Though I really like most of google's products, I'm still torn about
> the ethics of getting school kids to design for a huge company like
> that... I know they are being well recompensed, but it still seems
> quite propaganda exercise. On the other hand, so is Microsoft's
> software deal with the schools, but I'd still rather see our schools
> free of marketing exercises.
>
> vik
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-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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