Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and project director of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, is the leading keynote speaker at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) being held in San Diego, California on July 5-7. The OLPC project has received wide international coverage for its development of a $100 laptop that can be powered by a hand cranking mechanism (see picture). More than five million $100 laptops are expected to be shipped in early 2007, many of them going to children in developing countries. NECC is the US’s major educational technology show and one of the largest ICT conferences in the world. Those attending include teachers, school managers and developers of educational policy in government at local, state and national level. NECC is presented by the International Society for Technology in Education. More than 16,000 people are expected to attend. “The focus is very much on education and not technology,” says Leslie Conery, NECC’s conference chair. “It’s about seeing how technology can impact on the curriculum and the difference it can make in the classroom.” http:center.uoregon.eduISTENECC2006

* One lucky TES reader will win an all-expenses-paid trip to NECC courtesy of Crick Software plus pound;1,000 worth of software (or classroom cover, see opposite) - and there are plenty of excellent runner-up prizes of Crick software.