Bangkok--12 Sep--PC & Associates Consulting The Oracle Education Foundation (OEF) announced the opening of ThinkQuest International 2008, inviting students and teachers from around the globe to take part in one of the most well-known project learning competitions in the world today. ThinkQuest is open to students between the ages of 9 and 19 and their teacher-coaches worldwide. Students are encouraged to team with peers in other regions to develop websites on educational topics. As they create their sites, the participants develop important 21st century skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, self-direction, problem solving, and technology skills. Additionally, the students become published web-authors in the popular ThinkQuest Library, sharing their work with 30 million web learners each year. "Participating in ThinkQuest has empowered me to collaborate and compete with students from around the world. I have an opportunity to work with other kids my age on global issues that wefind interesting,” said Dylan, a 2007 first place winning-student from the “Living on the Brink” team, whose site addresses endangered animal issues. “While working on our website, we found it tremendously enriching to interact and exchange ideas with more than 800 children from 31 countries. ThinkQuest taught us to effectively use technology to thrive in this digital age, and offered a platform for us to share our work and knowledge with other children globallly. We did not just create a website — we actually involved 800 kids from around the world to contribute to our project.” "ThinkQuest is a unique educational program. Itbrings together students and technology in ways that positively impact kids’ lives and the communities in which they live," said Clare Dolan, Vice President, Oracle Education Initiatives. "More than 280,000 students benefit each year from the Oracle Education Foundation's technology programs, which help kids develop vital skills for life and work in the 21st century." Professional educators will judge all submitted websites for ThinkQuest International 2008. Entries are due on April 2, 2008, allowing teams up to eight months to build their websites. Qualifying entries will be published in the ThinkQuest Library. Winners will receive prizes from the Oracle Education Foundation, including laptops and $1,000 USD school grants for the top five teams in each age division, travel to the annual ThinkQuest Live event for the top three teams in each division, and digital cameras for the team that receives the Global Perspectives Award. Students and educators interested in participating can find out more details at: http://www.thinkquest.orgAbout the Oracle Education Foundation The Oracle Education Foundation sponsors ThinkQuest and Think.com, free online programs for the primary and secondary education community. It also makes grants to select schools and nonprofits to promote global online collaborative learning. For more information, visit http://www.oraclefoundation.org.About Oracle Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.Trademarks Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. In picture: (from left) Parintorn Boonyasirichok, William Ang and Andrew Ang from Diseases Detective team, a combination of students from Thailand, Australia, Vietnam and the United States who won Honorable Mention award in the Under 19 category with the theme of “Epidemiology” in last year's competition (ThinkQuest International 2007). Media contact: Siriporn Suparuchatakarn Suchai Chelermtanasak Oracle Corporation (Thailand) Co., Ltd. PC & Associates Consulting Co., Ltd (0) 2696 8072 (0) 2971 3711 [email protected] [email protected]