Two Kristin students have taken top honours in the NetGen Education Project 2012 - an international collaboration which involved hundreds of secondary school information technology students from around the world. The NetGen Education Project is designed to inspire and challenge students to study leading technology trends and to create their vision for the future.

Based on the work of award-winning author Don Tapscott and the annual NMC Horizon Report (which looks at technology developments over a 5 year period) students from around the world work in collaborative teams to create a detailed understanding of the changes occurring in education because of technology - a task they complete in an entirely digital learning environment. Once this knowledge base is established the students each produce an individual short video in which they demonstrate their understanding of their area of learning. A panel of international judges then judges the videos.

Niall Cairns and Sam Messinger - both Year 12 students at Kristin School who study ITGS (Information Technology in a Global Society) as a part of their IB Diploma - achieved individual awards within their chosen category as well as overall awards for their multimedia creations.

Sam won first place in his category, Game-Based Learning with his creative video, which investigated the benefits and potential of this developing technology in education. Sam's video then went on to be awarded third place overall for Multimedia Excellence.

Niall was awarded second prize for his video on The Internet of Things, which was based on the concept that everyday real life objects could have virtual data that could be accessed by other devices. Niall then went on to be awarded the top honour - first place overall for the entire project.

This is an exceptional result for both Niall and Sam who were working with, and competing against, secondary students from more than 10 countries around the world.