Oracle and Ministry of Education Invites Submission for Future Scientists Malaysia Contest

Contest open to all Malaysian students and teachers via educational portal Think.com

Oracle and Ministry of Education would like to invite all Malaysian students and teachers to participate in the Future Scientists Malaysia contest, exclusively via educational portal Think.com.

The contest is now open for registration and will close on 20 May 2008. All projects must be posted on the team’s respective Think.com project space, with all content creation completed by 20 June 2008. This unique contest focuses on project-based learning for the Science subject; promoting an exciting and fun way of learning where students can work together in groups with their teacher(s) as coaches. To keep the level of competition interesting, the contest is open to all teachers using Think.Com; whereby any teacher using Think.Com can be a team coach or co-coach.

A project group is also encouraged to collaborate with students from other schools in Malaysia. The project can be in any form of artefact, experiment, survey or any valid science project.

The Future Scientists Malaysia contest is being jointly organised by Oracle and the Ministry, in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. The winning teams representing primary and secondary schools and their coaches will attend a luncheon event hosted by Oracle with Saintis Muda Negara or National Young Scientist recommended by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and jointly organized by Oracle and the Ministry of Education.

Think.com
Think.com is a joint collaboration between Oracle and the Ministry of Education Malaysia. It is an Oracle-hosted, web-based educational environment that provides primary (ages 7 to 12) and secondary (ages 13 to 18) school students and teachers with personal Web pages, along with powerful communication and collaboration tools - at no cost.

Think.com members work within a protected online community, where they engage in project-based learning through a host of collaborative learning activities with other Think.com members. Think.com allows users to easily add text, audio and video to their personal pages, and interact with other members. Accessible from a standard Web browser, members can stay connected to their classrooms from home, school or the library.

In Malaysia, Think.com involves over 800 schools and 4,065 teachers. The plan is to roll out Think.com to another 4,000 Malaysian public schools by the end of 2008. On Think.com, Malaysian students are able to build knowledge, collaborate on projects and share educational content with the 276,000 students and teachers from 73 countries who are already members of Think.com’s protected online learning community.

Think.com is available in eleven languages, including Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai and Turkish. Oracle provides specific training so that the school community can take advantage of all of Think.com’s functionality.

Think.com is part of Oracle and the Oracle Education Foundation’s global commitment to education and 21st century skills development. By investing in the education of today's students and partnering with the Ministry of Education in Malaysia, Oracle is helping students obtain the vital skills needed for success in today’s global economy.

In the Asia Pacific region, Think.com is being used by more than 180,000 students and teachers in 3,551 institutions across Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.