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GVC Contest 2006/07 Award-Winning Websites Announced
May 1, 2007 -- After working together for the last 5 months, approximately 1,400 students from 53 schools, representing 18 countries around the world unveiled 19 websites as part of the Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2006/07. Today, contest winners in both the primary and secondary school categories have been announced.
With subjects that range from sports to cultural comparisons of their respective countries, and from ecological concerns to dreams for the students' futures, sites from participating teams show the kind of creativity that can come from putting children from different cultures together in a collaborative endeavor. Their efforts were judged for content, presentation, and collaboration.
The Grand Prize winner in the younger primary school category, Mission Possible: Our World in Our Hands, put together by a team from Taiwan, the USA, and Canada, provides a look into the students' desire to protect the Earth. Clean water, pollution, climate change, and other environmental concerns are discussed are profiled in this site, along with a video on the Earth as seen from space.
In the older secondary school category, the Grand Prize went to a team of students from Canada, Malaysia and the USA for their site, The Real World, Actually. This site is an overview of cultural comparisons across the three countries, along with essays and surveys on issues of interest to the students. This site's objective was to celebrate "the events, cultures, and festivals that bond people together."
The value of the Global Virtual Classroom program is not so much in the contest format or the awards or prizes, but in the cross-cultural interaction and in learning about collaboration and communication necessary to accomplish things as a group, and more. This year, one participating school from Israel had an opportunity to send it's school orchestra on a concert program to the United States. Two of the orchestra members were participants in the Global Virtual Classroom, and had an opportunity to meet up in person with their partners in the United States, moving the experience from "virtual" to something very real for them all.
Give Something Back International, the sponsoring organization behind the Global Virtual Classroom, would like to thank the students, teachers, judges, and the folks at Nicenet for helping to make this relaunch of the GVC Contest program a great success, and is looking forward to the next contest, for which the application period is now open.
GVC Contest 2005/06 Award-Winning Websites Announced
May 1, 2006 -- After working together for the last 5 months, approximately 1,500 students from 63 schools, representing 20 countries around the world unveiled 22 websites as part of the Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2005/06. Today, contest winners in both the primary and secondary school categories have been announced.
With subjects that range from students' heroes to cultural comparisons of their respective countries, and from ecological concerns to types of national governments, sites from participating teams show the kind of creativity that can come from putting children from different cultures together in a collaborative endeavor. Their efforts were judged for content, presentation, and collaboration.
The Grand Prize winner in the younger primary school category, Different Countries, Different People, Same Dreams, put together by a team from Israel, the USA, and India, provides a look into who the students look up to. National leaders, sports heroes, humanitarian inspirations, and "great thinkers" are profiled in this online "museum," along with individual students' essays on their "personal heroes" from their family and everyday life.
In the older secondary school category, the Grand Prize went to a team of students from Japan and the USA for their site, Holidays/Festivals/Events. This site contains an extensive collection of special days in the two countries, supported by essays, graphics, and animation highlighting the history, significance, and practices associated with them.
The value of the program is not so much in the contest format or the awards or prizes, but in the cross-cultural interaction and in learning about collaboration and communication necessary to accomplish things as a group. Tristan, a student from Illinois who worked on Holidays/Festivals/Events, summed it up by saying "What I have learned about working with other students is that they can create the most amazing things and that they expect to see the same out of you."
The division of labor that the best teams use to develope these sites - with some students doing design and graphics, some writing, and some handling the technicalities of putting the pieces together - allows all of them to contribute "the most amazing things."
Clubhouse Applications Flowing In, Informal Groups Forming
October 31, 2003 -- The GVC Clubhouse has attracted almost 60 schools in the less than four weeks that applications for this program have been open. In addition to new schools joining in, the total also includes schools that are already participating in the GVC Contest 2003/04 as well and have expressed interest in expanding their participation in the GVC family.
The "GVC Clubhouse for Teachers" is the first Clubhouse to have opened, in which teachers from participating schools are getting to know one another and starting to match up around topics of interest for individual clubhouses that will involve 2 or more schools from around the world. These topics range from original creative writing (poetry and short stories) to food in different countries to the environment.
The GVC Clubhouse is going to be an on-going program, year-round to accomodate the different school calendars in the northern and southern hemispheres, and can even allow for long term (multi-year) projects and relationships between the schools. If you are interested in the less structured, less restricted environment of the GVC Clubhouse, Apply now to add your part of the world to the GVC family.
A New GVC Contest VIP Judge
October 31, 2003 -- We've added a new judge for the GVC Contest. Joseph Timko, formerly of AT&T Bell Labs joins our roster of distinguished judges. Check out his impressive credentials, along with those of the others, here.
Contest Closed, Clubhouse Applications Accepted
October 6, 2003 -- As we finish the last day of the extended contest application period, we have 34 teams of three schools each from 3 different countries. A total of 36 different countries are represented. Any applying schools not teamed up will be allowed to use their application to participate in the GVC Clubhouse, which is planned to open for activity in late October. If you are interested in the less structured, less restricted environment of the GVC Clubhouse, Apply now to add your part of the world to the GVC family.
22 Countries, 56 Schools!!!
September 25, 2003 -- The Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2003/04 now has representation from 22 countries for a total of 56 participating schools. Apply now to add your part of the world to the list.
Contest Applications Continue Coming In!
September 19, 2003 -- In the past 4 days, the Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2003/04 has added representation from 5 new countries (Belgium, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, and the Ukraine - a nice diverse group) for a total of 16. Apply now to add your part of the world to the list.
GVC Contest VIP Judges
September 15, 2003 -- Biographical sketches of the VIP judges for the Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2003/04 have been added to the Contest section of this site. Check out their impressive credentials here.
Contest Applications Rolling In!
September 15, 2003 -- The Global Virtual Classroom Contest 2003/04 has already attracted participants from 11 different countries. Apply now to add your part of the world to the list.
Announcing the Return of the Global Virtual Classroom!
August, 2003 -- Three years ago, the AT&T Virtual Classroom brought together almost 300 schools from around the world. Earlier this year, AT&T has turned the Virtual Classroom project over to the Give Something Back International Foundation, an non-profit educational organization. AT&T has graciously given all the rights to the name and legacy materials to the GSBI Foundation. While AT&T will not continue as the primary sponsor, the AT&T Foundation has provided us with a grant to restart the VC project.
We are currently in the process of searching for additional corporate support, but with or without it we will be re-launching the program for the 2003/04 school year. Admittedly, unless a corporate angel appears, we'll probably be a bit more modest with contest prizes for the best multi-national team projects, but the real prize is in the learning and the collaboration of the students, isn't it? If you are associated with a primary or secondary school (ages 7-18), we would like to invite you to consider participating in the GVC project to help us make it the success it was a few years ago so that it can grow in the years to come.
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