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.
<br><br>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.
<br><br>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. ;-)
<br><br>Regards Roland<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 27/07/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">victor rajewski</b> <<a href="mailto:askvictor@gmail.com">askvictor@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 7/27/07, Kent Beveridge <<a href="mailto:kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au">kbeveridge@stbc.vic.edu.au</a>> wrote:<br>> Hey Roland, I got a flyer about this comp 'too!<br>> 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.
<br><br>In fact I don't think they accept electronic copies (though you can<br>print off your electronic artwork and submit it)<br><br>Though I really like most of google's products, I'm still torn about<br>the ethics of getting school kids to design for a huge company like
<br>that... I know they are being well recompensed, but it still seems<br>quite propaganda exercise. On the other hand, so is Microsoft's<br>software deal with the schools, but I'd still rather see our schools<br>
free of marketing exercises.<br><br>vik<br>_______________________________________________<br><a href="http://www.edulists.com.au">http://www.edulists.com.au</a> - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe<br>Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College<br><a href="http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au">http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au</a><br><br>"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