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 peace. On the first day, we'll be focusing on The Challenge (two essay-style papers) and for the rest of the conference we'll be focusing on over 120 papers and presentations that students from all over the world have prepared especially for this conference. We'll also be running a forum called 'Pledge for the Future' for the entire conference where you can make a pledge to help bring about global peace and discuss the best ways to do this.

Our online discussions will be live on the internet non-stop – night and day - from Monday 14 May to midnight on Sunday 20 May (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 postal/ 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 peace – and we want you to share you thoughts about that. So, if you want to chat about something else, 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 final one-week student online conference in a set of four

Have a great week, everyone!

Debra Brydon
iNet Online Conference Manager