At the recent Digital Education in Action conference held at the John Paul College in Brisbane (September 8 & 9, 2008), AARNet and QCIF constructed the OptIPortal to demonstrate its capabilities to the schools sector. Opened by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, this national conference was attended by 250 delegates including Principals, Heads of Curriculum, Administration Heads, Bursars, Chief Information Officers, Teachers, IT staff, and Librarians, and explored the challenges and benefits of the ICT education revolution through forums focused on leadership for change and practical solutions to developing and implementing successful technology strategies, in an education setting.

As a significant part of the Digital Education Revolution initiative, the Australian Government is investing $1.1 billion over five years (20082012) to provide for new or upgraded information and communications technology (ICT) for secondary schools with students in years 9 to 12; with a focus on student computer ratios. This program provides the an opportunity for schools to use a portion of that investment to develop their own OptIPortal and the conference provided a good opportunity to demonstrate its capabilities and potential. The availability of ultra high resolution content is a challenge to a broader appreciation of the OptIPortal, as such the development of a ultra high resolution content bank that is aligned with a schools curriculum would be a worthy project. The OptIPortal generated enormous interest from the students.

The involvement of the OptIPortal at the Digital Education in Action conference was organised by Nick Cross, the AARNet Manager for Education Outreach, with asistance from Jason Andrade and Brett Rosolen of AARNet, together with Chris Willing and Jonathon White of QCIF.

More information on QCIF's OptIPortal