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Brothers make ThinkQuest their summer project
Two brothers enter ThinkQuest for their third year. By Alicia M. Bartol SCR*TEC |
 he competition at
ThinkQuest is getting tougher. Students like Chris and Dave, brothers from
Shawnee Mission, Kansas, have been entering the competition annually since 1996. This
year they will enter again, with two years of practice under their belts.
Chris, 15, and Dave, 17, heard about ThinkQuest from their dad, a graphic arts teacher in Kansas, who had found the competition while surfing the Web. He had intended to coach some of his own students through it, but with a deadline fast approaching, they made it a family affair. Dave says they simply, "read through the instructions and signed up." From then on, the boys took it on as a summer project: brainstorming ideas, researching, and learning HTML in the process. |
 Dave handled the HTML on the brothers' ThinkQuest project. |
he brothers decided to make a site on gangs, because it was interesting and potentially
very educational. Since the purpose of ThinkQuest is to create educational sites, Chris
and Dave's goal was to create an accurate and reliable portrayal of gangs, their identity,
language, apparel, graffiti, and activities.
Their first site, Gangs: the foster family, was a real learning experience. Although their school, Bishop Miege High School, offered a course in basic computing skills, neither of the boys had the opportunity to learn HTML through formal instruction. They both had computer experience, however, so Dave took on the HTML coding while Chris was the self-proclaimed, design guy. Chris busied himself with Corel Draw to create most of the pictures and icons seen on the site, and Dave found "a little HTML editor, a shareware version," to begin learning to code. |
 ave had ample time to
learn basic HTML, because the research phase of the site took the first couple months.
"The research is what took the longest, and the pictures, because Chris had to come up with
some good ideas." To get an idea of what was important, they "visited a whole lot of sites
for research, got some books, and tried to make an outline."
The boys found that the local library did not provide many resources, which is the consequence of picking such a current issue. Some topics are better researched through periodicals, academic journals, and reliable Web sites. So given their local resources, Chris and Dave turned to the Internet. |
 Chris was the "design guy" on the ThinkQuest project. |
he biggest problem with
Internet research was choosing reliable resources from the plethora of available information.
Dave admits, "I had to search around a while, because you run into those gang sites that
are supposedly by gang members . . . they just tell how they initiate people, and things
like that. But I found a couple good [sites], and most of them were by police departments."
Once the brothers had researched and designed the elements of their page, they put it all together in a couple of weeks. Dave, who continues to refine his HTML skills, says, "It's fun to do, and it isn't hard." He advises other kids to start out with basic HTML, as they did, and build as they go. Although Dave would like to learn Java to spice up their next site, he says, "you can do a lot with the basics." |
 hris has also done his
part to enliven the sites. For their 1997 ThinkQuest entry,
Angels, glasscats, and friends in a neon
wonderworld, he created some incredible animations with Corel Move, a function of Corel
Draw. Perhaps the most exciting are the dancing fish. "Those are my favorite!" says Chris.
"You just draw a bunch of little pictures, one a little different from the other, and it'll
make an animation . . . I love making [them]."
Both Dave and Chris emphasize how much fun it is to create sites for the Web. "The first year was harder," says Dave, "because we were learning the HTML. The second year was easier, but we were still learning. That's the fun part of it: you're always learning. Nothing works out the way you want it the first time." |
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"The first year was harder," says Dave, "because we were learning the HTML. The second year
was easier, but we were still learning. That's the fun part of it: you're always learning."
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he brothers intend to
enter this year as well, with a site on deafness, entitled "Sounds of silence." Using the
partner-finding page on ThinkQuest, Chris and Dave found a student from Maryland to team up
with, for the '98 contest. According to Dave, their partner is "partially deaf, and her
parents are deaf, so she came up with the topic." Given their experience, they should all
do well.
Ever since Chris and Dave began their first ThinkQuest entry, Gangs: the foster family, they have been learning and refining their skills. Their school has helped publicize their efforts, and now their teachers always tell students about the ThinkQuest contest. Regarding their first site, Dave says, "It was our intention for it to be good for teaching about gangs in classrooms," but they've apparently reached an even wider audience. The Gangs site has been recognized by a national gang expert, Steve Nawojczyk, and has even found its way into a college professor's book! |
 ho knows what acclaim
their next site will bring? Chris and Dave seem more interested in simply learning
more ways to make sites exciting and informative. With ThinkQuest as a venue, they can't
lose.
Read the story of three Texas high school students who had no previous knowledge of the Internet before entering Thinkquest. |
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