 For at least the next ten years, a majority of new jobs in Louisiana will require more than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year college degree. For their part, educators are responding with more meaningful curricula and increased academic rigor. To be completely relevant to today’s needs, however, application of real-life work experience is needed across Louisiana’s economic spectrum. Many businesses are willing to provide students with these work/learning opportunities, and many schools are eager to find business and industry participants for their expanded programs. Solving the inherent logistical and administrative problems involved in matching a wide variety of school needs with a large number of participating businesses, is the focus of an innovative new Internet-based system developed by the Louisiana Department of Education and Technology Engineers. The system, known as Biz2School, is up and running, and available to Louisiana educators to help link enthusiastic students with real-time, real-work experiences in business and industry.
A partnership between the Regional Education Service Centers, and Career and Technical Education Division within the Louisiana Department of Education, has created a multi-faceted system that uses the Internet to bridge the gap between the classroom and the workplace. Biz2School, an on-line matching system developed by the Louisiana Department of Education along with the analysts and software developers at Technology Engineers, works conceptually like the commercial Internet people-matching services eHarmony.com and Match.com. The system helps schools and interested partners in the business community get connected over the Internet.
Individual schools anywhere in the state can register once on the system, by filling out an on-line profile of the school and its needs. The data is entered into the master database containing information about each school’s profile and business participation needs. Among some of the needs requested by schools from businesses are:
- Job Shadowing Experiences
- Student Mentoring
- Subject Matter Expertise
- Student Internships
- Workplace Tours
- Demonstrations
- In-Kind Services, Sponsorships and Donations
- Advisory Council Service Opportunities
- Assisting with Senior Projects.
Businesses who have registered with Biz2School are sent e-mails by schools who have entered a service request into the system. Service Request e-mails for business help can be generated by a school for multiple businesses. Businesses receiving the e-mailed Service Request can then accept or decline the school’s invitation for help.
A popular feature of the system is a regularly run process that matches school needs with business availability. Schools looking for a particular type of business workplace activity (workplace tours, for example) are matched with profiles of businesses offering various workplace experiences. Matches between school requests and business profiles are pulled from the database and automatically e-mailed to both the schools and the businesses.
Access to the system can be gained by any of five categories of users: Public, School, Businesses, RESC personnel and Biz2School System Administrators. The public has access to limited information, such as viewing the level of activity in a specific region. Schools can register to use the system as described earlier, and can view details on registered businesses. Businesses use the system primarily to accept or decline requests from schools. When the request is made by a school, accepted by a business and the workplace experience is completed, both the school and the business have the opportunity to rate each other. RESC personnel and system Administrators oversee activity with the Biz2School system. RESC personnel are limited to schools within their region, and Administrators have access to the entire database.
Biz2School is an innovative way to use the Internet and the latest database technologies for solving complicated logistical challenges. The system was developed using Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the Microsoft .NET framework. The internal database is comprehensive and relational, using the Microsoft SQL Server Relational Database Management system to organize and store data.
For more information on the Biz2School and the Louisiana
Department of Education please click here.
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