NEWS

ThinkQuest Newsletter
August, 1998

Contents:

• Feature: ThinkQuest Conference in Geneva, Switzerland
• Announcements
• ThinkQuest Teams in the News

• The ThinkQuest Conference in Geneva, Switzerland

Set to coincide with INET 98 meetings, the ThinkQuest Conference in Geneva was held on July 20 - 21, 1998. National Partners from eleven countries attended, as well as prospective National Partners, several ThinkQuest staff from the United States and two TQ97 award-winning students from Germany.

The main objective of the conference was to update the information about the international growth of ThinkQuest and discuss issues of particular interest to National Partners. Key issues discussed included the creation of a pre-ThinkQuest contest to promote localized familiarization with ThinkQuest, the visitation of former contestants to report on the ThinkQuest experience, and the conversion of ThinkQuest Web Site and Library of Entries to various languages, including establishing the ThinkQuest Help Desk in local languages. Additionally, the prospect of an International ThinkQuest council, consisting of one representative from each National Partner organization and Advanced Network & Services, was unanimously approved.

Allan Weis, President and CEO of Advanced Network & Services, spoke on Tuesday, July 21, 1998. He encouraged National Partners to create local programs modeled after ThinkQuest and ThinkQuest Junior. He stated that by doing so, the value and scope of the library of entries could be enhanced significantly offering easy access in several languages to students and teachers in various parts of the world.

Advanced Network & Services would like to thank all for their participation. A special "Thank You" as well to the National Partner of Switzerland, Dominik Landwehr and his colleagues at Migros organization, for the warm and gracious reception and dinner hosted Monday evening, July 20, 1998.

We are happy to announce the following additions of ThinkQuest National Partners: National Polytechnic University of Ecuador, Genius Elite Limited of Hong Kong, National Center for Educational Resources of Norway, Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center (RITSEC) of Egypt, Universidad Francisco Marroquin of Guatemala, and Internet Direct Ltd. of Mauritius.

• Announcements:

- 1998 ENTRY FORM ONLINE!

As all teams competing for the 1998 ThinkQuest contest are well aware, the Entry form is now online and must be completed by August 31, 1998 at midnight. Your team will need to decide who will be responsible for completing the form, or the Team Leader can assign different sections of the form to his/her Team members. Make sure all Team members know who is responsible for the FINAL SUBMISSION of the Entry Form. If you are still working on the Entry Form or you want the other members of your Team to review it, you may fill it in partially and SAVE your work by clicking on the "ENTRY NOT FINAL, SAVE AS IS" radio button, and then clicking on "SUBMIT". This will allow you to return to the Entry Form and continue to make changes until you are satisfied.

When you have completed the Entry Form and uploaded your Web pages, click on the "ENTRY IS FINAL" radio button and then click on "SUBMIT". Make sure you wait for the confirmation message that will appear, stating "Form submitted successfully.

The Entry Form is located at: http://www.advanced.org/cgi-bin/tq98entry.cgi

- SUBMIT LESSON PLANS!

The ThinkQuest web site now features an area for educators to share lesson plans that feature sites from the Library of Entries. Use our online form at:

http://www.thinkquest.org/teach/tea-lessonsfr.html

The ThinkQuest and ThinkQuest Junior web sites have been featured in The Busy Educator's Guide to The World Wide Web, an educational tool written by Marjan Glavac. More information on this book can be found at: http://www.glavac.com

• ThinkQuest Teams in the News:

"Why Is the Mona Lisa Smiling?", ThinkQuest entry from 1997, once again makes the news! This well-traveled site has been chosen as the Newsday Cool School Site of the Month at http://www.newsday.com/nie/schools/month.htm

Additionally, the site has been listed by Newsday in Education under "Projects Straight from Schools" at: http://www.newsday.com/nie/schools/projects.htm

The ThinkQuest Junior entry, "What's In a Name", was selected by NetLife magazine, a Canadian publication, as one of its 4 "Worth A Surf" KIDS ONLY sites in their July/August print and online issue. To see this and other Worth A Surf sites, visit: http://ww1.sympatico.ca/mags/netlife/links.html

"Tracking Creativity", the 1998 ThinkQuest Junior First Place Winner for the Arts & Science Category, has been chosen as the teacherzone.com award winner for August 1998. Visit the spotlight@ area: http://www.teacherzone.com/

The ThinkQuest Newsletter is edited by Sonia McSweeney

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