Biography - Tina
Name: Tina
Nationality: Australian
Role: Assistant Coach
My name is Tina and I am the Assistant Coach for the ‘A Matter of Time’ team, 2007. I live in Adelaide, which is the capital city of South Australia. We are very lucky to live here as the landscape is beautiful and the weather is amazing even though we can have very hot days in the summer as well as extremely cold days in the winter – total extremes!
I live with my husband and my two sons, aged 17 and 12. Life gets pretty busy with both my husband and I being teachers. I am a primary school teacher and I have been in the field of education for about 25 years and I still love it dearly. I teach a variety of subject areas though my primary focus this year is teaching Greek across the school. I also share a Year 1 class, train an Early and a Primary Year's choir, and I have a keen interest in the area of ICT (Information Communication Technologies). Sometimes I feel like I am a jack of all trades and master of none!
I have been involved with ThinkQuest for a few years now and each experience has been unique and wonderful. I started out being a judge and enjoyed this part of ThinkQuest as it provided me the opportunity to experience a kaleidoscope of student designed websites firsthand. The following year I had the pleasure of chaperoning a winning student to ThinkQuest Live2005. It was an amazing experience to see how excited the teams were when they met. In many cases, the teams were international and were meeting for the first time face to face. Since then I have moved on to coaching and have had a great time working with this team. It never ceases to amaze me how much I learn from each team I come in contact with.
This team is made up of some extraordinary students who have brought their unique talents and strengths to the group. It has been amazing watching them get into the swing of ThinkQuest, especially since only Kishore has been part of a TQ team before. Each student rose to the occasion and not only fulfilled their responsibilities, they constantly went over and beyond what was expected of them.
I worked closely with Taylor and Chrissy in the research and writing sub-group, by editing and checking citations. I watched closely as they conducted their research and completed their articles. It was a time of growth for both of them as they started to really get into the ThinkQuest experience. I really enjoyed my time working with them and I learnt so much about the topic of ‘Time” through their engaging articles. I am also glad I had the opportunity to meet Chrissy and Taylor briefly in Derry when I came out to New Hampshire for a visit last year.
Even though Harry was born in Adelaide, his grandparents were born in Greece and his Greek heritage is strong. He was recruited to join the team because his Greek language skills were equally strong and I worked closely with him as he did his translation. Part of my job was to review his work and help him overcome some of the technical jargon issues whenever he needed. Even though the translating was a huge job, Harry persevered and the result was nothing short of outstanding.
David and Ruohan did a fantastic job taking care of the technical aspects of the website, coming up with a fantastic layout with lots of innovative add-ons to make the site not only easy to navigate but fun as well. It was wonderful to “meet” them, even though it was only online since they live in the UK and Singapore respectively. They are great guys and it was great fun interacting with them and getting to know them better during our weekly chats.
It was a trip down memory lane working with our team leader, Kishore. He is one of the most organized and capable students that I have had the pleasure of working with. Kishore is mature beyond his years, is confident, and is always respectful in his approach to leading the team. He interacted extremely well with everyone and worked very closely with Jim and myself.
Working with Jim again in this ThinkQuest cycle has been both rewarding and motivating. I admire his sense of logic and organization. Jim always has a very open and structured approach to his coaching duties and I have learnt a lot from him as well as from the whole team experience. As with every team, there are challenges to overcome and rewarding times to share and this team was no different. This is what makes participating in ThinkQuest such an exciting and enlightening experience. I have enjoyed it all.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jim and the team for being such a wonderful group of people to work with. I would also like to thank my husband Peter and family for their never ending support. It is going to feel a bit strange when I don’t have to log onto our chat session every Saturday or Sunday evening but I hope we will continue to stay in touch with one another for years to come.