Smart challenges students to post online stories

MANILA, Philippines - It could be a town hero, a historical place or a way of life. Every community has a story to tell and it’s time to share it with the rest of the world via video blogs, blog sites or website.

Smart Communications, Inc., through its “Doon Po Sa Amin” (DPSA) Project is launching two new online content generation contests in addition to the annual Doon Po Sa Amin Learning Challenge, which is now on its third year.

This challenge is open to all high school and grade school students who want to be counted among the growing population of young people contributing local online content – with a chance to win cash prizes!

DPSA is a community service project that encourages schools to use computer and Internet technologies to contribute web-based information and educational materials about their respective communities. It lends further meaning to SMART’s “Internet for All” advocacy as it makes the Internet relevant to society. 

“Ano ang Kwento Mo?” (What’s your story?) is open to all private and public high school students nationwide. Student teams, headed by a teacher coach, are to create video blogs that feature a distinct characteristic, place, or culture in their communities. Topic categories include Arts and Culture, History and Society, Travel and Cuisine, and Environment and Disaster Preparedness.

Teams are required to upload their videos in a video hosting site, then create a blog site where the hosted videos will be embedded. 

The team with the best video blog will receive the championship prize of P30,000. Four Best in Category winners will each receive P10,000 while P5,000 will be awarded for both the Best in Video Blog Site Design and Layout, and the Best in Student Collaboration. 

Registration is open until Aug, 13, 2010. Registration forms can be downloaded from the DPSA website www.doonposaamin.ph.

For the grade schoolers, there is the Doon Po Sa Amin Quest. With the theme “Our Community, Our Pride: Rediscovering our Hometown”, it engages teacher-student teams to research unique stories about their respective communities and narrate these stories online through their blog sites.

The contest is open only to partner elementary schools of Smart Schools Program and Online Associates.

The DPSA Quest grand champion will be awarded P30,000 and a desktop for their school. The 1st runner-up will receive P20,000; 2nd runner-up, P15,000; and the 3rd runner-up, P10,000. Special awards with a P5,000 cash prize each will go to the Best in Collaboration, Best in Blog Site, and Best in Photos. 

Finally, Smart is opening the Doon Po Sa Amin Learning Challenge exclusively to Smart Schools Program partner high schools and Online Associates (high schools) nationwide for the third consecutive year. The Learning Challenge was introduced in 2008 as an incentive program under the DPSA Project initiated by Smart.

The competition requires teams to perform basic community mapping exercises to generate local content which will help their respective communities be educated about and/or address pertinent local problems or issues. Final output of the competition is the website designed and developed by the teacher-student team.

Categories are Science, Technology and Health; Environment and Disaster Preparedness, Livelihood and Economics; Arts and Culture; Language and Literature; History and Society; and Tourism and Entertainment.

For the 3rd DPSA Learning Challenge, prizes include P50,000 for the Grand Champion, plus 1 desktop for their school; P30,000 and one desktop for the school for each of the seven Best in Category winners; and P10,000 each for recipients of the Special Awards Best DPSA School Team, Best in Community Involvement, Best in Website Design, and Best in Photos.

Deadline of entry submission for all three DPSA contests is on November. For more details and the complete mechanics, visit the DPSA website at www.doonposaamin.ph.