Transcript of OnlineWA Video Tutorial

Transcript of OnlineWA Video Tutorial.

Presented by: Jackie Gill, Project Leader with the Office of Information and Communications.

"Hello and welcome to the OnlineWA community gateway.
I'm Jackie Gill, Project Leader with Office of Information and Communications in the department of Commerce and Trade.
OnlineWA communities is part of a state-wide strategy to help Western Australian's into the information age.
It's been conceived and managed by the Office of Information and Communications within the department of Commerce and Trade in partnership with communities around Western Australia.

There are four main components,
1/ The OnlineWA Communities Internet Project
2/ Creating and sustaining online communities, which includes the CASOC 2000 conference
3/ The E - Aware Seminar Series.
4/ And the Online Champions Network.

The site you are now in is part of that program. It is the component called the OnlineWA Communities Internet Program.
OnlineWA Communities, or OWAC as we will call it for now on, is designed to make people aware of the benefits of the information age and the Internet and to encourage usage of new technologies. As we encourage usage we create demand for better infrastructure and bandwidth and demonstrate to the telecommunications carriers that providing the technology is commercially viable.

Getting people to go online is being done by encouraging them to find out how and why the Internet is important in their lives, through providing useful and relevant web sites. And providing education and awareness how to use the web-sites and the Internet in business, community and family. Basically here at OnlineWA communities we believe it is no good knowing how to use the Internet if you don't know why you are using it. In marketing terms, we know that you want to know what's in it for you. Then when you know you will in vest time money and energy into getting online.

The State Government is directly involved to varying degrees in the design and management of twenty web serves under this program. The more web site there are around the more likely you are to find something that appeals to you as a user.

OnlineWA communities is based around the new phoneme which is emerging with growth of the internet, 'the online community of common interest'. These new communities aren't based on geographic location they are based on how people share interests in common. For people how have an interest be it, lavender growing, trout farming or pencil collecting the Internet means that they can now share that interest with people all over the world. New friendships based on the sharing ideas and information, new ways for education and better ways for doing business are all the possibilities of the online world.

OnlineWA communities' gateway is the key to all of this, it's a protal site and a portal simply is doorway or single point of entry into the electronic world. Portal sites bring information together into one place and allow the visitor to find their way around the information easily. To get OnlineWA communities going and to show people the vision we had OIC has funded managed five web services and briefly I'm going to take you through the series of five.

First cab of the rank was Millennium West, a joint project with the Office of Citizenship and Multi-cultural Interests. This web service detailed all of the happening on New Years Eve.
And gave emergency services a good opportunity to make sure services where deployed where they needed to be on the night. It also has a section were people can leave messages which will be stored in a cyber-time capsule for opening many years hence.

Third thing was Progress Rural WA this site was a joint project with the Minister of Primary Industries and Agriculture Monty House. It Showcases the innovative Progress Rural WA program which includes the online component known as Bush-Net. The Bush-Net program includes innovative approaches to creating online communities such as Hometown where people can record their memories of their Hometown or leave messages for people in places of significance to them. Hometown has a spot in cyber-space for every place in Western Australia and it will become a recorded history of the people of our State. And then there is Showcase where people with good ideas and inventions can display them. It's easy to put your details up there. There is a swap-meet and traders page and a link to a whole range of interesting and useful Internet links for rural people but that's not all. If your into community builders or the rural leadership program there is a spot for you as well. And so if you are rural WA have a look at the Rural WA website today.

Next in line is the Triple "R" network. Around Western Australia there are some 4000 women in rural, remote and regional women's network. Up until OnlineWA communities they where linked pretty much by a quarterly newsletter. Now with the web service women can search for topics of interest, create new friendships, access information and call for help. As well as just have a chat or leave a message for a friend.

The Multi-cultural online network will put multi cultural communities of interest online giving communities across Western Australia a voice and link with their cultures. The network gives each ethnic group in WA a service to allow them to talk and share with others from their cultural background.

Avon-Online is the only web service, which is a regional community of interest. It brings together the communities of Toodjay , Northam and York. Giving the residents of these towns the community network second to none, the footy results, the minutes of meetings, events and achievements and all of the goings on of the local community. With the content entered by and managed the people themselves. There will also be a business channel putting the local businesses online so the people are encouraged to shop locally.

Each of these sites demonstrates some aspect of the capabilities of the Internet from chat, which gives you the ability to talk to other people in real time. Instead of talking down the phone you are doing it with words on the computer screen. To bulletin boards which are places where you can drop in at your leisure and read what other people are talking about and leave a message yourself.

OnlineWA communities' gateway also has a state-wide events calendar that you can enter your event onto and the whole world can find it easily and there is news of what is happening online in the State. There is libraries where you can publish your own papers or pictures to the web so others can see them and a whole lot more. You can get into each of these web services by clicking on the picture on the front-page or by searching through the dropdown menu in the bottom right hand corner. You can't break this just give it a try and you will find your way around it really easily. And if you do want find out more about using the Internet we have put a tutorial on the site. You can get into it by clicking the Internet tutorial button on the OnlineWA communities' gateway front-page. There is so much more to find in the OnlineWA communities' gateway. So have a look and see what's on offer, you will be glad you did or at least you will know what your kids are talking about anyway."

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