GLOBAL VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

2008/09 AWARD WINNING WEBSITES ANNOUNCED

Dallas, Texas, May 5, 2009 – The Give Something Back International Foundation (GSBI) has announced the winners of the 2008/2009 Global Virtual Classroom Contest (GVC) -- a free online collaborative learning project that fosters creativity, cross cultural understanding, helping others and teaches IT and website design skills amongst students working together from around the world.

Sponsored by GSBI, the GVC program provides an opportunity for primary and secondary school students from different countries to work with and learn from students in other countries, as they collaboratively design a website on a topic of their choosing. Teams are comprised of either three primary or three secondary schools from different countries. A panel of international judges evaluates the final work and determines the winners.

In September 2008, AT&T* announced a $50,000 contribution to support the Global Virtual Classroom project.

With subjects that range from wildlife education and conservation to cultural comparisons of their respective countries, and from clean water, pollution, and climate change to music around the world, sites from participating teams show the kind of creativity that can come from putting approximately 2,100 students from 23 different countries together in a collaborative endeavor.

Their efforts were judged for content, presentation, collaboration, and new this year, a helping focus. The helping focus was added to encourage students to also demonstrate achievement of a helpful objective such as personal, social and/or environmental responsibility or support for a worthy cause.

This year’s Grand Prize winner for the primary school category is “The School of Kindness” designed by students from Ein Ganim School in Petach Tikva, Israel; Harrison Elementary School in Warsaw, Indiana, USA; and Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Oak Park, Illinois, USA. Their website promotes kindness and shows ways to help people all over the world through stories, fables, and images created by the students of the three schools.

Hedy Rosenthal, the Principal at Ein Ganim, Israel, states that “watching students build a website about kindness is everything education should be. It is not only learning English but acquiring technology skills for tomorrow’s world and reinforcing educational values which can not be taught with any textbook.”

The Second Place winner in the primary school category is the “Walk on the Wild Side” website presented by Reservoir Middle School in Newport News, Virginia, USA; Gymnasia №57 in Kurganskaya Oblast, Russia; and Epiphany Cathedral School in Venice, Florida, USA.

In Third Place of the primary schools is “Our Global Rainbow: Looking Beyond the Colors” from Topa Topa Elementary School, Ojai, California, USA; Lahore American School, Canal Bank, Lahore, Pakistan; and St. Therese School in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

The secondary school category’s Grand Prize winner is the “World of Water” created by C S Ramachary Memorial Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Madurai, Tamilnadu, India; Athens District High School in Athens, Ontario, Canada; and Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, Illinois, USA. This team created a very educational and interactive site complete with compelling original artwork on the current issues related to water usage and pollution.

The Second Place winner for the secondary school category is the “Friendship Bridges Gallery” created by Warrandyte High School of Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia; Wako Kokusai High School in Saitama, Japan; and Municipal Educational Establishment Secondary School #11 of Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

Third Place is awarded to Philippine Science High School of Quezon City, Philippines; and Littleton High School from Littleton, Colorado, USA for their website about “Sustainable Development.”

Certificates of participation are awarded to all students. Plaques and cash awards are presented to the schools of the winning teams. The Grand Prize award is $3,000 for the winning primary school team and $3,000 for the secondary school team. The second place award is $1,500 for each winning team and the third place award is $750 to each team.

JoAnn Patrick-Ezzell, the Chairman and one of the co-founders of the Give Something Back International Foundation said, “Beyond the impressive accomplishments of the website projects, we are thrilled that the teams also found ways to give back to their schools, fellow students, and their communities in very meaningful ways. I’d like to thank AT&T for their great support of the GVC, Their commitment to supporting education projects around the world is inspiring.”

To view the winning websites visit www.VirtualClassroom.org. Online applications for the 2009/10 program are also available on the site.