Harvard ES fifth-grader Callie Bream took home a gift card for $150 as the inaugural first-place prize winner of a new monthly video contest.

Keeping email accounts secure with strong passwords is an important aspect of responsible digital citizenship, and students from two HISD schools have demonstrated their mastery of this concept by winning the top prizes in a video production contest co-sponsored by the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and HISD’s Educational Technology team.

Harvard Elementary School students won four of the five prizes available (first and second, as well as two honorable mentions), while a student from Eastwood Academy took home the third-place prize.

The competition was created as a part of Digital Awareness Month in October to increase students’ web savvy while also giving them an opportunity for creative expression.

“This has been such a great outlet for the students,” said Harvard Elementary School Instructional Technologist John Schaff. “We have been trying to create movies that fit into our curriculum, and we will be recommending other cyber safety and digital citizenship topics for future competitions.”

Students received prizes of $150, $100, $50, and $25, respectively, from the FPF. The organization has also pledged to make the contest a monthly competition open to all HISD students. The deadline for the next round is Friday, Dec. 11, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Please contact Samantha Rosenthal or Kevin Lewis at 713-556-6200 to request an information packet or for additional details.

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