Scotch College

Sleepless in Seattle

Roger Slade and Greg Baker spent a couple of sleepless nights in Seattle before presenting their paper, 'Just Do IT', at the annual National Educational Computing Conference (NECC 97) in July.

Their presentation was the only one by an Australian school at this major international conference. Nearly 8,000 registered delegates made the conference the largest educational computing gathering in the world.

The presentation focussed on the development Information Technology at Scotch over recent years and highlighted the many achievements and future directions. Roger Slade showed some of the students' work including Hyperstudio stacks from last year's grade 4 students, which was very well received.

The audience included the Principal, Dr Gordon Donaldson and his wife, Mrs Joyce Donaldson as well as NEC Australia's Systems Integration National Manager, Mr Paul Grady, and Apple Australia's National Education Manager Mr Craig Bradley.

A Microsoft vision for education

Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, gave the keynote address: 'The Connected Learning Community: A New Vision for Technology in Education.'

His presence indicated the growing importance of the education market to Microsoft and a new commitment to developing tools for students and teachers.