All Is FAIR for Two Twin Cities Schools

Students and Faculty Volunteers Develop Websites for the Interdistrict Downtown and FAIR Schools

Web Design & Interactive Media students and faculty from The Art Institutes International Minnesota have volunteered their time designing two new Web sites for the Interdistrict Downtown (IDDS) and FAIR schools.  As part of a WebRaising project for their program, the students will migrate the Web sites from a beta test site to a fully functioning website at a countdown celebration at the FAIR School, located at 3915 Adair Avenue North in Crystal, Minnesota, on Monday, May 18, 2009 at 2 pm.  Students from the FAIR School and administrators from the IDDS and FAIR schools along with the Web Design & Interactive Media students will be on hand during the countdown and launch celebration.

“FAIR and IDDS approached The Art Institutes International Minnesota for support in web development because of their great reputation in providing quality training and education opportunities for students interested in the arts,” says Kevin Bennett, Principal for the FAIR and IDDS Schools. “As two fine art magnet schools in the metro area, we were seeking a partner that shared our interest in arts education with the resources to help us interact and communicate with our community using multimedia technology. We are thrilled with the high quality work their students produced and look forward to better serving families and students.”

WebRaising is based on the idea of an old-fashioned barnraising.  At no cost to the community organizations, the WebRaising teams combined their creative and technical expertise to build new Web sites for non-profit groups in their communities.  Local past beneficiaries of this program include the International Order or Police Women Conference and Homeless Against Homelessness. 

“WebRaising provides students and faculty an opportunity to give something back to the community,” says Dana Nybo, Academic Director for the Web Design & Interactive Media degree programs at The Art Institutes International Minnesota. “Young designers should have at least one community service piece in their portfolios. I encourage all students to take advantage of the opportunities provided by events like WebRaising.”   

This year’s beneficiary organizations are the InterDistrict Downtown and the FAIR schools. The schools are part of the West Metro Education Program (WMEP).  WMEP is a voluntary consortium of 11 urban and suburban school districts in the Minneapolis metropolitan area that was formed in 1989 to cooperatively address integration issues in the west metro area.