Web site team wins platinum award at 1999 ThinkQuest awards.

Hayward Unified teachers Matt Graham and Yolanda Chang and San Jose teachers, Jan Gliozzo and Katy Guernsey won the top award in their category for their educational web site at the November 22nd ThinkQuest awards ceremony in Universal City.

ThinkQuest, is a not-for-profit organization which provides incentives for educators and students to create web sites for teachers and students. Web designers compete yearly for nearly $2 million in scholarships and cash awards.

journey The award winning site "By the Great Hornspoon: A Gold Rush Adventure", explores the California gold Rush through author Sid Fleischman's historical novel, By the Great Horn Spoon! The web site takes the reader on an interactive journey through the story while providing valuable information about the California Gold Rush.

The site includes some of the author's original manuscripts, lesson san francisco plans for teachers to use in their classrooms, and Spanish language translations. The site can be found on the web in the ThinkQuest library at http://library.advanced.org/50048.

Team members, Matt Graham,Yolanda Chang, Jan Gliozzo and Katy Guernsey are Bay Area educators who competed with other educators across the country in the ThinkQuest for Tomorrow's Teachers competition. They created the site because they enjoy teaching the novel, but discovered a need for web-based resources for the book.

diggins The novel has been published in many languages around the world and is widely taught in California classrooms.

Matt Graham is employed by the Hayward Unified School District as a technology coordinator for with sid a technology literacy challenge grant and serves as webmaster for the district web site. Yolanda Chang, also a Hayward teacher, teaches 4th grade at Longwood school. Jan Gliozzo and Katy Guernsey teach 4th grade at Moreland Discovery School in San Jose.

If you are interested in learning more about ThinkQuest or about the 2000 ThinkQuest competition, visit their web site.

Newbery Award winning author, Sid Fleischman poses with the site development team at the ThinkQuest Awards weekend. Wearing Panama hats, clockwise from the back row, are Jan Gliozzo, Sid Fleischman, Katy Guernsey, Matt Graham, and Yolanda Chang.

Contact the team by e-mail.