Expo Confronts Parents’ Virtual Fears

To help students and parents better understand computer technology and how to apply it in their daily lives, AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School hosted Technology 2000 Expo.

Organizers decided to go beyond the usual trade show-style expo by featuring panel discussions and online communications demonstrations in addition to showcasing the latest in educational software.

By bringing the new technology out of a high-pressure showroom and into a familiar school auditorium, event sponsors hoped to help parents embrace the new technology likely to become commonplace in their children’s lives.

“Some adults fear computers, like they are some kind of complicated factory machine,” said Vicken Gulvartian, organizing committee chairman. “But we hope they will see that they are machines that are made by people for people and that computing is fun.”

About 1,500 visitors at Sunday’s event viewed demonstrations including computer-aided design, computer graphics, animation and digital photography.

For those interested in online communications, there were numerous stations where visitors could chat with 22 other AGBU schools worldwide, send e-mail messages to President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Mayor Richard Riordan or view Armenian Web pages on the World Wide Web.

Others listened to panel discussions, such as “The Application of Computers in College Education” and “Internet: Virtual Fear and Reality.” They also cheered elementary school students competing in a quiz-show-style computer literacy contest.

The day ended with a Techno Social featuring techno-music and a laser show.