Tina Photakis
My name is Tina, and I am the coach of this ThinkQuest team. I have been a primary school teacher for the past 27 years. I specialise in both the teaching of Greek in the Primary Years as well as in general classroom teaching.
I am bilingual and was fortunate enough to win a scholarship to study at the Athens University in Greece. Living and studying in Greece and being immersed in the Greek language and culture was an enriching experience and it solidified my interest in teaching Greek upon my return to Australia.
I have taught Greek at many schools in Adelaide, in grades ranging from Reception through Year 7 - the final year of primary school. I am now teaching, and have been for some time, at Norwood Primary School. Norwood is a lovely, old, inner city school that services a wide community with a strong multicultural mix of students. I teach Greek L.O.T.E, which means Languages Other Than English and I am also sharing a Year 2/3 class.
In addition to my passion for languages, I also have a strong interest in teaching Information Technology. I found out about ThinkQuest 18 months ago at one of our National Conferences while I was serving on our state computing committee. It was Carol, our Assistant Coach who introduced me to ThinkQuest. She was at the ACEC 2004 conference receiving an award for acknowledgement of Australia’s success in ThinkQuest. I was so impressed with ThinkQuest at the time that I signed up to be a judge. The whole introduction to and interaction with ThinkQuest has been a great professional and enriching experience for me.
I was fortunate to attend ThinkQuest Live last year, in San Francisco as a chaperone. Whilst there, I met the members of the winning Coffee team. I was really impressed by the hard work and strong sense of team collaboration that they displayed and I found out what it really meant to be on a ThinkQuest team.
Upon our return to Australia, Carol and I decided to form a team and so I approached the Year 6 and 7 students at my school. The students were very enthusiastic about forming a TQ team and we chose some hard working and focused students. After a slight setback, Eleanor from Newcastle joined us and so we have 5 wonderful students in our team who are to be commended on being a truly collaborative group. We have Chloe, Jordan and Tyler from Norwood PS, Harshita comes from another school and Eleanor comes from Newcastle, in New South Wales.
I wish to thank the team for their hard work and positive outlook at all times. They worked very well together, even with Eleanor being so far away and were very creative in their approach to the making of this site. The students wanted to present a website to the world that would highlight the unique animal life here in Australia. They met regularly and with enthusiasm, producing this wonderful website that you see here!
I would also like to thank Carol for her support and guidance with our team. She kept up the lines of communication and made sure that the students were really clear on what was expected.
I would also like to thank the parents of the students in the team, and especially Robin and Preeti, who tirelessly supported us and encouraged us to keep on going. To Mark and Daniel, we are truly in awe of your knowledge and patience in teaching us about the technical side of web pages. We truly thank you for both for your support and guidance with our team. Also, thank you to my principal, Rob Harkin, and my colleagues Sue, Marissa, Heather and other staff, for their ongoing support.
It was a wonderful and enriching experience!