Look out, Bermuda's adults: Generations of technologically-savvy young Bermudians are ready to show us the right way to do things in the ever-widening world of computers.

Speaking at the weekly Hamilton Rotary Club at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Bermuda Technology Education Collaboration (B.TEC) executive director Marisa Hall said the students in their programme "leave me in their dust".

And ACE Foundation head Ralph Richardson also praised the CedarBridge and Berkeley students in the B.TEC programme, saying: "I don't know this stuff".

The Bermuda Technology Education Collaborative started as an initiative of the XL Foundation.

"It was developed all because of a swimming pool," Ms Hall said.

Back in the late 1990s, Spice Valley Middle School put in a request for a pool from corporate donors, she explained.

However, the donors decided they wanted to give something which would provide more "long-term" benefits ? and in 1998 the XL Education Initiative was born.

The Initiative collaborated with Stanford University and the University of Virginia (UVA) to integrate technology into the public school system.

To maximise the impact it would have on the Island as a whole, the entire Bermudian community was encouraged to become stakeholders and the name changed to B.TEC in 2002.

Today, Ms Hall said, B.TEC has more than 70 partners in both Government and the private sector.

Their goal ? bringing technology to empower the community ? targets the students of today who will be using computers in almost any job they eventually enter, she said. "It's not just about computer technicians and programmers anymore."

The technology is also empowering teachers, she added.

Technology can be used in any subject from English to Maths, and it was often the case that the students knew more than the teachers did about the technology available.

However, with B.TEC training 425 teachers already through Stanford and UVA (in programmes both allowing them to earn credits towards higher degrees and instruct other teachers on what they have learned), the teachers are catching up.

The B.TEC task force is divided into five sub-committees which, although generally small, are very focused.

Information technology courses were developed in partnership with Stanford and UVA in a curriculum modelled on university-level computer science courses.

Students learn computer skills in their first year of senior school which, Ms Hall noted, she herself had not learned until her third year of university, adding that one can "imagine" how knowledgeable they are in later years.

In fact, the standards of the programme are so high it was recently internationally certified with the International Society for Technology in Education (www.iste.org) ? the only high school programme in the world to receive such a distinction.

Students can choose from three different programme tracks ? programming, visual/web design, and IT consulting. Some students are striking while the iron is hot, she said, and taking all three.

Almost 3,000 students have taken the courses, with a pass rate of 87 percent. Two computer science teachers have been hired to offer other teachers assistance at CedarBridge and Berkeley, and graduate students from Stanford and UVA have come to Bermudian on occasion to help teachers implement what they have learned into the classroom.

The goal now is to lay the groundwork to keep the programme going in the long run, Ms Hall said. "After all, I won't be here forever, so we need to figure out ways to keep going and make it part of the school system and remain so."

Ultimately, she said, it is the students who benefit. Students take to the programme "like ducks to water" ? a fact which makes all the drudgery and toil behind the administration of the programme worthwhile.

Ms Hall added: "The students are worth it... The students are phenomenal."

Both Ms Hall and Mr. Richardson spoke of the effects of the programme on students, many who are willing to stay behind after school/during lunch hours ? even, in one case, after the rest of the school was sent home to due a fire alarm ? to work on their computer projects.

Mr. Richardson previously noted the programme has a positive impact on students who, prior to B.TEC, may have had behavioural problems, calling the programme a "pre-emptive strike".