About Us
We are Nick Mortimer and Annette Booth. Nick has worked as a software engineer, computer programmer, adult education lecturer in computer technology and has just returned from Mawson station, Antarctica where he spent 17 months working as an electronics engineer.
Annette has worked in social service delivery and the health industry as a systems analyst. Annette has also just returned from Mawson station, Antarctica where she spent 4 months as a volunteer with Nick
We share a love of out of the way places and the environment, with a particular interest in alternative energy generation. This resulted in participation in the 1997 World Solar Cycle Challenge from Adelaide to Alice Springs and we look forward to participating in this event again in future years.
We are now based in Perth, Western Australia and are in the process of starting up our own educational software business, Cool Continent.
Cool Continent aims to create multimedia educational tools designed to build teachers' and parents' confidence in their ability to teach a particular subject using a creative process combining many different techniques. Our first product will facilitate project based teaching about Antarctica.
Our experience of computer based learning packages is that the student sits alone with the computer and learns to manipulate the software package to produce the "right" answer without necessarily learning much about the subject. It is our belief that the computer cannot teach by itself. A relationship must be developed that involves exploration for the learner with guidance by the teacher - a purely human interaction which can be assisted by computer packages, but not replaced by them.
Cool Continent also presents Circus Penguin, conducting circus workshops and providing entertainment.