THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603240050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
If you miss the comet Hyakutake, don't despair. There's another on line.
The Comet Gunn will make its closest approach to the Earth on June 3.
That's what students from 146 schools learned when they delved into the worldwide Internet searching for answers to the latest round of questions in the telecomputing category of the 11th annual Great Computer Challenge.
The question was hard, but it was fun to find the answer, agreed students gathered for Saturday's challenge at Smithfield High School in Isle of Wight County.
And it was even more fun to learn that Amy Carter - President Jimmy Carter's daughter, who had the last cat in the White House before the Clintons' Socks - named her cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang.
``Our librarian taught us everything we needed to know about how to find the answers to the questions, and now, I'm teaching my father,'' said Alex West, a student at R.O. Nelson Elementary School in Newport News.
And that's the exciting part, said Marlene Stanton, a former Isle of Wight teacher who has followed the event and watched it grow year after year.
``The kids are embracing this stuff,'' Stanton said. ``It's the adults who are still standing back, saying `Whoa!' ''
The Great Computer Challenge has been sponsored each year since 1985 by The Consortium for Interactive Instruction, Old Dominion University and WHRO-TV. And every year, the event has grown with more schools and more students participating.
This year, the challenge was split into two divisions. The junior competition, for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, was held in Smithfield. The senior event, grades six through 12, will be held on May 11 at ODU's Webb Center.
If the students aren't already using computers in the classrooms every day, they soon will be, said Steven Crawford, a computer services specialist at ODU who came up with the keystroke-provoking questions and was one of the judges in telecomputing.
In that competition, the students were challenged to come up with the right answers to 14 questions, but they were also required to give proper directions.
``We wanted to know how they did it,'' Crawford said. ``We were looking for something in the instructions that would allow anyone who had never used the Internet before to go in and get where they needed to be.''
That prevented any of the contestants, working in teams of mostly three, from telephoning, for example, Busch Gardens, and simply asking what the admission cost to the amusement park is this year. Each team had to provide the proper networking instructions.
Telecomputing entries ranged from a few pages to volumes of papers that involved backgrounds and histories on things such as the comet and the cat.
Besides surfing the Internet, more than 450 students were challenged to produce elaborate graphic art designs. They had an hour and a half. Others tackled primary publishing, logo programming and desktop publishing.
``We had to write one silly sentence,'' said Holly Millner, a second-grader from Larchmont Elementary in Norfolk.
Her team, which included Andrew McCormick and Margaret Hatcher, came up with: ``Cats catch cold and challenge each other who can cough the most.'' The sentence had to be programmed into the computer and illustrated.
Valerie Brown, principal at Mount Hermon Elementary School in Portsmouth, will have a special memento of the 1996 Computer Challenge.
Students from her school participating in the desktop publishing category were challenged with writing and designing a one-page award.
``Ms. Brown helps us a lot,'' said Debbie Wilkins, a fourth-grader who acted as timekeeper for her team. ``We finished in a half-hour. Then, we went over the spelling and got the color right. When the time was up, we had a copy for the judges and an extra one for Ms. Brown.''
Except for telecomputing, where the students were presented with the questions and allowed to do the research at their home schools, most of the challenges were complete surprises.
The graphics division may have been the most fun.
``We had to draw something about space,'' said Kandi Sampson of Hidenwood Elementary in Newport News. ``We had three UFOs flying through space.''
Chris Hodges, a student from Saunders Elementary in Newport News, designed with his team a space city, complete with a restaurant shaped like a hamburger.
Teams participated from schools as far away as Accomack County, on the Eastern Shore, with other schools represented from throughout Hampton Roads and into northeastern North Carolina.
In all, 17 school divisions and 13 independent schools were represented on Saturday, said Linda Berry, of WHRO. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
GARY C. KNAPP
Amber Harb, Tierra Filhiol and Jeremy Zehr, students from Norfolk's
Tanners Creek, work on a Primary Publishing entry.
Photo
GARY C. KNAPP
Kiln Creek Elementary students practice graphic arts skills at their
school in Newport News before the Great Computer Challenge. From
left, Morgan Jones, Jessica Alabata, Leann Ronnebaum and her mother,
Teresa Ronnebaum.
by CNB