The New York Hall of Science is hosting a Master Magician Contest in anticipation of the opening of the blockbuster exhibition Magic: The Science of Illusion on June 28.
Content: create a video of yourself performing your favorite magic trick to illustrate the connection between science and magic. Max 2 min. Deadline of video contest submission: June 9 2008 Eligibility: Adult (15 and older) and Kids (14 and younger) categories (of the USA?) Prize: The title “Master Magician of the New York Hall of Science,” along with a Magic Prize Package including a $50 gift certificate to the Hall, will be awarded to the producer of the top video in both adult (15 and older) and kids (14 and younger) categories. The three top finalists in each category will receive New York Hall of Science t-shirts. Rules of video contest: NYScience.org
Here’s Card Science as an example for the contest by Elizabeth Wade
SMART Technologies is teaming up with TeacherTube to offer the Extraordinary Moments Video Contest. We’re looking for 30-second commercials that best answer this question: How do SMART products help you create extraordinary moments in your classroom?
Content: submit videos of how you and your students use SMART technology to create a fun, interactive learning environment. Deadline of video contest submission: May 31, 2008 Eligibility: Extraordinary Moments Video Contest is only open to educators in North America Prize: One first place entry will win a trip to attend the NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, to attend the premiere of their commercial, whereby SMART will pay up to a value of USD$2,000 for costs related to airfare, hotel accommodation and NECC 2007 registration fee. The winner will also receive a SMART Board interactive whiteboard, valued at approximately USD$3,500. Rules of video contest: http://teachertube.com/extraordinary.php
The MindMashup video contest takes its inspiration from a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” This year’s Sparky contest is being organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) with additional co-sponsorship by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture, and The Student PIRGs. Details are online at http://www.sparkyawards.org.
“This video contest is an excellent venue to engage students and to explore with them the intricacies of re-using content,” said Anu Vedantham, Director of the Weigle Information Commons at Penn Libraries. “The videos that emanate from this and similar contests provide vibrant examples of student creativity and ownership of new media. At Penn, I have noticed that mashup video contests and video classroom assignments engage students and faculty in new ways with academic material, and that video creation can be effectively integrated in many disciplines including writing, history and language studies. Through involvement with the 2009 Sparky Awards, libraries and new media centers have a valuable opportunity to reach out to faculty and students” said SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph.
Content: make a short video to illustrate the power of info sharing. Deadline of video contest submission: Nov 30 2008 Eligibility: To be eligible, submissions must be publicly available on the Internet – on a Web site or in a digital repository – and available for use under a Creative Commons License. Prize: The Winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 along with a Sparky Award statuette. Two Runners Up will each receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate. Rules of video contest: http://www.sparkyawards.org/
I like the idea of having a video contest centering around remix culture, and the first video that comes to my mind is that of Michael Wesch, anthropology professor who made a video of what the Web looks like today, and became a viral video success reaching about a million viewers.
Now your task is to show what our culture looks like today, I guess. Even though we knew that our culture is basically remix, it is even more visible thanks to the web, and more easily remixable at the same time. Total Recut ( a video remix community website) has managed to get great judges for this touchy and blurry challenge: Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Kembrew McLeod, Pat Aufderheide, JD Lasica and Mark Hosler Content: make a video answering the question ‘What is Remix Culture?’ You can you use any footage you can find, including Public Domain and Creative Commons work, max. 3 minutes – min 30 seconds long. Don’t forget you “must remix previously published video footage” and can use your own too.
Prizes: laptop computer loaded with video editing and conversion software, a digital camcorder, a digital media player, as well as Special Edition Total Recut T-Shirts, books, DVDs and CDs.
Deadline: June 1 2008
Eligibility: Contest is open to natural persons of any age, from any country.
And here’s the video made by Michael Wesch, anthropology professor: The Machine Is Us/ing Us This is a slightly revised and cleaned up version of the video that was featured on YouTube in February 2007.
Ball State Senior Jagjeet Singh Chahal a $1,000 scholarship from Miles Electric Vehicles in an Earth Day Video Contest. What’s more, the California-based company gave an $18,000 electric car (top speed of 25 miles per hours) to Ball State University.
“In the architecture program they are pushing us that in every design you have to have some kind of a sustainable feature,” said Chahal. For example just in a design using passive, solar system instead of using artificial lighting.
Here’s the video made by Chahal on Youtube. Title: No Gas Required
And here’s another video entry on gas fueled cars vs electric and hybrid cars made by Michelle Mann that I liked pretty much.
Anyway, Ball State University’s Natural Resources Club has been preparing for a year for today’s Earth Day event, “No Student left inside.” According to NewsLinkIndiana, students took part in geocaching, a game where you use a GPS device with a location off the web to find hidden items. Besides, there was a solar powered fan operator, and students had to figure out how to connect the wires in order to get the fans to work. Anything interactive and green and fun is doing good for Earth Day. :)
Check out more video contests in an easy to use detailed calendar.
The title of the Step Forward video contest was inspired by Kofi Annan ’61 when he said, “We all have the power to make choices. We can choose to be silent and turn away. Or we can Step Forward and take action.
content: show what Macalester alumni enjoy, and what’s unique about Macalester to potential donors, e.g. the quality of work Macalester students can produce, as well as many different perspectives about student life today – max 5 min prize: up to $5,000 deadline: Sept. 15 2008 aim: “the college hopes the capital campaign will draw in $150 million dollars over the next few years. The money will go toward financial aid, faculty salaries, the new Fine Arts center, Institute for Global Citizenship and the Macalester Athletic Recreation Center.” (via the MacWeekly)
Step Forward Events Coordinator Karlyn Wegmann
Florida launched a video contest in order to protect St Johns River, and several high school students participated in the contest in the hope of sending out the green message and to win the grand prize of the contest: $1,000. I think this video contest was a truly good example of a, involving kids b, being preventive about how kids will be thinking of their own water resources c, answering an existing environmental problem
The hope is that the video contest would bring students in on water issues, including the controversy that surrounds tapping the river to alleviate the potential water shortage, he said. “Kids are really not included. They don’t have a seat at the table yet. Kids have as much, or more, to lose,” he said. Orth said the videos were not to include conservation tips — that has been done. Instead, Riverkeeper wanted a “compelling message” about why water conservation is necessary. According to the Riverkeeper Web site, each resident along the St. Johns waterway uses as much as 150 gallons of water daily, about 50 gallons more per day than the national per-person average. The organization wants lawmakers to look at other means before tapping the St. Johns River to solve the water crisis. (from Orlando Sentinel )
Here’s a video of Florida St Johns river, the St. Johns-Econlockhatchee Mosaic, one of seven critical natural habitats in Central Florida that need to be preserved for future generations. (2006
As Gale is celebrating National Library Week (April 13-19, 2008), it announced a YouTube video contest for ‘songwriters’ who are willing to perform love songs to their favorite book or author. “The contest encourages booklovers to literally sing the praises of their favorite books and authors during this year’s Books & Authors contest.” (PRweb)
content: sing your love you song to your favorite books (OK, not every book may inspire such a love song…) prize: $5,000 Grand Prize, more precisely: The video with the most votes will be awarded the Grand Prize of $5,000. The songwriter(s)/performer(s) will be awarded $2,500; the other $2,500 will go to the library of the winner’s choice. So win half the prize for your favorite library! deadline: May 31 2008 eligibility: for over 13 year old residents further info and video contest rules: on Gale
Here’s a nice video of the Librareo Lounge from the official contest group:
Check out further online video contests in a quick overview in this user-friendly Video Contest Calendar.
In cooperation with the Wright Museum of World War II History (Wolfeboro, NH), Big Y Foods (Springfield, MA), Market Basket (Tewksbury, MA), the Manchester City Library (Manchester, NH), and other New England businesses, nonprofits and community groups, the U.S. Navy Leadership Challenge invites you to use your creative video force to produce a short film about your “Hometown Hero.”
eligibility: New England high school students between 15 and 18
prize: two-day, all-expenses-paid trip to a Navy installation on the East Coast in June 2008.
If you are a high school student who happens to have a favorite teacher, take your camcorder and feature her/ him.
Content: show how your high school teacher affects your life in a positive way.
Eligibility: high school students from Lawrence, Scioto, and Gallia counties in Ohio, Cabell, Wayne and Putnam counties in West Virginia and Boyd, Greenup, Carter, Lewis, Elliot, Fleming, Lawrence, Rowan and Mason counties in Kentucky.
Deadline: April 29 2008
Prize: the winning teacher will receive an amazing prize, & his or her classes will also be treated to a pizza party.
Video Contests that Rock 