NEWS

ThinkQuest Newsletter
November, 1999

Contents:

• SPECIAL ISSUE: THINK QUEST EXCELLENCE  RECOGNITION

• CONTENTS THIS ISSUE:

1. F E A T U R E : ThinkQuest's Tomorrow's Teachers: Finalists @ Awards Event '99

2. A N N O U N C E M E N T S
* PBS Looking for Coaches for Interviews on TQ Experience
* Webcast of Los Angeles ThinkQuest Awards Event

3. E L E C T R O N I C  S C H O L A R' S  N O T E B O O K
Where in the World is TQ Cited?
Awards, Features, Reviews, and Instructional Use

This issue explores the many ways that ThinkQuest participants are acknowledged for their web site entries that are used as resources in the education community.

Recognition comes in many forms.In this issue, we track selected teams for the kinds of interest shown in their work, both formally and informally.

ThinkQuest honors two programs' finalists at the annual Awards Event on November 20-22. Along with the ThinkQuest Internet Challenge, this year is the first year that the ThinkQuest for Tomorrow's Teachers winners will be announced in Los Angeles.

There are many different ways in which sites continue to be noticed and recognized. PBS is looking for coaches to interview for their TeacherSource program. The monthly column "Electronic Scholar's Notebook" shows the wide range of recognition that ThinkQuest sites receive.

ThinkQuest's Tomorrow's Teachers Finalists @ Awards Event 

The ThinkQuest for Tomorrow's Teachers Competition challenges teams of K-12 teachers, prospective teachers and college and university faculty to build content-rich and easy-to-use Web-based educational materials for K-12 classrooms and teacher-education programs.By working in teams, teachers, university faculty and prospective educators draw upon their individual strengths and share their diverse knowledge and talents with the rest of their team as they create the contest entry. Composed of four-to-seven members, the teams create quality web-based educational material that encourages teachers to use technology as an everyday tool for learning.

ThinkQuest's Tomorrow's Teachers (TTT!) finalists show a diversity of design, participation, and creativity as wide as their geographical origins. The Entries for this first cycle are divided into categories of Materials for Use in Teacher Education, Materials by Grade Groups, and Materials by Content Area. The link for the TTT finalists is: http://www.thinkquest.org/library/tqtt99finalists.shtml.

PBS Looking for Coaches for Interviews on TQ Experience 

If you are, or were, a Team Coach who prepared a site in any of the following areas, and are willing to be interviewed for an article by PBS, please contact Mary Halnon, Assistant Director, Online Education, PBS Online mhalnon@pbs.org.

PBS will be featuring sites on TeacherSource  http://www.pbs.org/teachersource.The information from the site includes this description on TeacherSource: "PBS TeacherSource materials are developed by trained and practicing educators.In addition to having teachers create curriculum materials, PBS regularly seekseducator feedback through surveys and focus groups, receives ongoing guidance representing various educational organizations. Finally, the TeacherSource editorial staff is composed of educators with a variety of teaching backgrounds." The schedule of needed articles from TQ Coaches is: 

December: Math article (math tied to music, performing arts, or fine art)

January: Social Studies article (media literacy, focus on media)

February: Arts article (project looking at African-American artists, Harlem Renaissance) 

March: Science article (women scientists for National Women 's History Month)

April: Technology article (computer programming, virtual environments, etc.)

May: Math article (math in outdoors/everyday world, or math in sports)

June: Social Studies article on projects related to jobs, career planning.

The 1999 ThinkQuest Awards Event will be broadcast Live from Los Angeles, California via RealVideo.

Join us by dowloading the RealPlayer from http://www.real.com/player/index.html and returning to http://www.thinkquest.org/awards_wknd/experience/realplayer_event.shtml for the live broadcast at 4:30 PM Pacific Standard Time on November 22, 1999.

Also, check for pictures, stories and other web updates of the Awards Weekend at http://www.thinkquest.org/awards_wknd/event.shtml starting on Friday, November 19th.

E L E C T R O N I C   S C H O L A R' S  N O T E B O O K (C) 1999

Awards, Features, Reviews, and Instructional Use By Patricia Libutti, Ph.D., ThinkQuest Cybrarian

ThinkQuest sites are often selected or featured as excellent educational resources. Sites are acknowledged through awards, used in instructional programs, included in K-12 and university resources, and used by commercial organization sites, such as Lycos.This column features three teams to demonstrate the diversity of formal and informal recognition:

"Why is Mona Lisa Smiling?" http://www.thinkquest.org/library/13681.shtml, 

"Pieces and Creases: A Fun Guide to Origami" http://tqjunior.advanced.org/5402/ and 

"Totally Tessellated: An Introduction to Tessellations" http://www.thinkquest.org/library/16661.shtml.

Steve Feld, Coach of the "Why is Mona Lisa Smiling" team reported recent recognition. "Why is Mona Lisa Smiling" was featured in:

-Knowledge Adventure as a CyberSurfari'99 outpost  http://www.knowledgeadventure.com/educators/edu_adv.php3

- Family Education http://teachervision.com/article/0,1120,3-2782,00.html

"Pieces and Creases", the Best of Contest in TQ Jr. 1999, lists awards on their front page.The awards vary in criteria and categorization. Many other TQ and TQ Jr. sites have won the awards.

"Education World" http://www.education-world.com/awards/ produced by Concourse C, Inc.gives an overall "grade" to a site, based on posted criteria.The site is then categorized.

"Surfing the Net with Kids" http://www.surfnetkids is written by Diane Feinman. A column this year featured ThinkQuest Junior and selected four other TQ Jr. sites besides "Pieces and Creases" for review.

"Yahooligans!", sponsored by Yahoo! featured "Pieces and Creases" Yahooligans! has over 400 ThinkQuest sites in its archive http://www.yahooligans.com.

"Berit's Best sites for Children" http://www.cochran.com/ is the work of Berit Erickson, who focuses on a directory of safe sites for children up to age 12.

"Totally Tessellated" does not list an awards page. Its popularity is demonstrated by inclusion in syllabi of universities, K-12 Math web pages, news and magazine articles in several languages, bibliographies, and mirror sites. A search for "Totally Tessellated" in Google.com resulted in information on over forty inclusions in other sites.

What is the reputation of the award in the education community?

Is the award conferred upon sites submitted for inclusion, or by selection?

Grace Smith, Ph.D., who selects sites for Too Cool School House http://www.worldvillage.com/school/index.html responded to a request for the criteria used in selection.

She relies on the New Mexico State University Library site http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/susabeck/evalcrit.html and leans heavily on the following criteria for selection:

"1. The content encourages exploring and thinking, thereby engaging learners.

2. The site offers something unique or an in-depth look at a topic.

3. The site includes more than text and graphics. It takes advantage of the range of possibilities offered by the Web.

The ThinkQuest entries I have honored are superb examples of the threecriteria (above). Knowing that these entries have been created by students is awesome."

Grace is also the District Technology Curriuclum Specialist, Grosse Pointe Public School System, Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

There are increasing ways that recognition is conferred on a site, as seen in one exhaustive listing http://www.net-ads.com/promotion/awardwx.html and in a directory of the eminent sites worldwide http://websiteawards.xe.net/topawards.htm. It was only a matter of time before an imaginative crew of ThinkQuesters invented their own Awards and distributed them on some 1999 TQ sites ...

[This issue's planned column on graphics has been scheduled for later in the year]

Beginning at The Beginning: IDEAS for Research for Web Site Construction