Welcome

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the iNet online conference for students. My name's Debra and I'm the manager of this e-vent. I live in Melbourne, Australia but, thanks to the internet, I can work everywhere. This is an international conference and students from all over the world, aged from 5 to 18 years, will be taking part – including students from India, Indonesia, Singapore, the UK, Australia, Thailand, Canada and many other countries.

For the next week you'll have the chance to talk together about global citizenship. On the first day, we’ll be focusing on The Challenge (a video, as well as an essay-style paper) and, on days 2, 3, 4 & 5, we’ll be focusing on nearly 70 papers and presentations that students from all over the world have prepared especially for this conference. On the last two days, some key questions have been provided to sharpen up your thinking on some issues relating to global citizenship.

Our online discussions will be live on the internet non-stop – night and day - from Monday 11 December to midnight on Sunday 17 December (UK time). You can participate in this conference at school or at home, as a group or by yourself. But you won’t be alone – thousands of students will be joining you in cyberspace for this e-vent.

A huge thank you to everyone who sent in a video, an essay, a website presentation or an audio file for the conference. Without you, and the support of your teachers, we could not have made this happen.

There’s a lot to read and see, and I hope you'll have a lot to talk about online. Don't be shy and please say what you really think. Well, I mean there are only a few rules. First, be friendly. Only use your first name when you're online and don't type in any personal contact details, such as personal websites (like MySpace). No phone numbers or pstal/ email addresses, please, as this is a safety issue. And please don't mention the names of teachers or get too personal if you’re annoyed about something. We want to keep everyone happy! The last rule is 'stick to the topic'. This week is about a really important topic - global citizenship – and we want you to share you thoughts about that. So, if you want to chat about something else, such as the cricket, please use one of your other favourite online forums.

If you have any suggestions about future iNet student online conferences, or how this one could be improved, feel free to send me an email.

This is the first one-week student online conference in a set of four – please think about preparing a paper or presentation for one (or all) of our next student conferences. These are the three topics we are looking at next year:

5-11 February 2007: Global equality. We are the first generation who can eradicate poverty. How can we make this happen? Stories, essays, drawings, mindmaps, poems, MP3 files and videos are urgently needed for this one! Can you help?

12 -18 March 2007: Global resources. How can we protect our planet?

14 - 20 May 2007: Global peace. How can we bring peace to our planet?

For further information on how to prepare a paper or presentation for the online conference, see website: http://www.cybertext.net.au/studinfo06.htm or, if that doesn't help, just email me with your questions.

Have a great week, everyone!

Debra Brydon
iNet Online Conference Manager