On Sunday November 23rd, NYSCATE (New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education) kicked off the 2008 Annual Conference with a bang. Soundzabound sponsored the evening of entertainment, featuring season 7 American Idol finalist Alyssa Coco and New York’s favorite cover/show band Nik and the Nice Guys.

John Churchman (Publisher of www.school-video-news.com) and Jim Morrison of www.schooltube.com set up a complete studio with green screen and tri-caster in the lobby of the Convention Center and video recorded the evening’s entertainment.

This was the perfect prelude to this year’s NYSCATE theme, Discovering your Digital Destination, which was held at the beautiful Riverside Convention Center in downtown Rochester, NY.

NYSCATE Conference Chairperson Amy Perry-DelCorvo of Monroe County Regional Information Center, exhibit coordinators Debbie Baker (Brighton Central School District ) and Christy Williams (Madison-Oneida Regional Information Center ) and entertainment coordinator Carmelita Bienek (WNYRIC) all did a fantastic job not only on the social aspects of the conference, but also on the exhibits, while holding extremely relevant and useful breakout sessions in easy-to-reach locations.

The keynote was delivered by Marc Prensky, author of Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and Digital Game Based Learning. Keeping with the theme, Monday night at the adjacent Hyatt Regency, NYSCATE hosted Gaming through the Decades as an interactive journey through time, exploring favorite games of gamers’ past.

Our very own President, author and co-founder of Soundzabound, Barry Britt, worked with Carmelita Bienek to provide the evening’s entertainment. As a keynote and concurrent speaker at many various educational conferences, Barry states, “Wow, it’s easy to see why upstate and western New York is such a leader in technology for education. This is what happens when people love their job and understand that the future of our country and economy sits in our classrooms each day.”