San Andrea Senior School gets Gold Award in International Cyber Fair Competition

San Andrea Senior School was recently presented with the Gold Award in the International Cyber Fair Competition. The school had participated in 1997, 1999 (classifying among the top ten for its Website on the Order of St John www.sanandrea.edu.mt/old/knights), 2000, 2001 (Silver Award for its Website on the Megalithic Temples www.sanandrea.edu.mt/temples) and 2002 when it was awarded the Silver Award once again for its Website on St John's Co-Cathedral http://www.sanandrea.edu.mt/Senior/CyberFair/st_john/intro/intro.htm).

The International Cyber Fair Competition, now in its 11th year, is an award-winning, authentic learning programme used by schools and youth organisations around the world. Students conduct research on their local communities and then publish their findings on the Internet.

Recognition is given to schools for the best projects in each of eight categories: local leaders, businesses, community organisations, historical landmarks, environment, music, art, and local specialties.

This White House-endorsed programme encourages youths to become ambassadors for their own local communities by working collaboratively with community members and using technology tools to publish a Website that displays what they've learnt.

The annual contest has involved more than one million students from 4,500 schools across 100 countries - and is considered the longest running international cyber event of its kind. In addition to the cyber entries, judging for the competition also takes place online.

Students review the projects of other schools using a Web-based evaluation tool designed by Global SchoolNet. The top 40 entries are then reviewed by a panel of international judges, representing six continents, to determine the winners.

This project began last January when the teachers in charge chose to participate in Historical Landmarks. Under the supervision of their teachers, 19 Form 2 students carried out research during break time in the library about Roman Malta; the latter being the title of the Website they had to create.

They were then divided into five groups with each group taking care of particular sub-topics. To help them in their research, students were shown documentaries about the Romans and with their teachers went on an educational visit on a Saturday morning to St Paul's and St Agatha's Catacombs, as well as to the Roman Domus in Rabat. During these visits they took notes, photos and video-clips in order to build their Website.

The site - www.sanandrea.edu.mt/cyberfair/RomanMalta (the school's Website being www.sanandrea.edu.mt - features interesting information about the Romans in Malta as well as photo galleries, video clips, artefacts, historical places, 90° and 180°photos, teachers' notes and worksheets, a bibliography and a detailed project.

This project was co-ordinated by Mark Sciberras (teacher of Italian and link person responsible for teaching students how to create Websites), Allison Borg (Form 1 History and Geography teacher) and Stephen Briffa (Humanities co-ordinator and History teacher Forms 2-5) and Steve Giordano-Imbroll (the technical person responsible for uploading the Website onto the server). Moreover, great help and support was provided by Lina Farrugia (San Andrea Senior School librarian) and Audrey Galea (San Andrea Senior School head).

The comments by the international judges and reviewers were extremely positive. Carmen Costina and her pupils in 6a grade at Elf School, Cluj-Napoca, Romania said: "Congratulations on your work! We appreciated the interesting information about the history of Malta. We never knew it was part of the Roman Empire. We liked the photos you took at the various sites, the 90° and 360° pictures and the design theme, which was very appropriate. Congratulations!"

Iwan Taur from Taiwan said: "Bravo! There is clear evidence that your project has a close tie with your community. There is much first-hand information, such as observation, visiting, sound recording, visual recording, photos and so on, which are very precious."

Through this project, students could work with the different teachers who taught them different subjects. It also helped link history with Italian and environmental and cultural studies. Through hands-on project work, the topic definitely became "more alive".

Students' feedback to the project was also positive. Some said: "Through this project we learnt how to really use computers. Moreover we learnt how to use Microsoft Publisher to actually create a Website ourselves! Creating hyperlinks was quite easy and fun in fact".

Others said: "We were also surprised at how much information on the Roman empire is available on the Internet. All we've learnt will surely help us in our future history lessons and exams".

The project also served to bring the students closer outside the school environment. They were all surprised and impressed at how team work and dedication can take you places.