As many of you know, we will not be back at NIU Hoffman Estates this year because of some disrespectful and destructive behavior from some of our students at last April's festival. Many of us have searched for an alternative site and ran into various issues. So after the last Institute Day, a group of us gathered to discuss the festival and what changes we could possibly make in order to make it easier to find a new venue. We even discussed having the event at Drury Lane Theatre, but when the cost approached $7,000+, we scrapped that idea. Ideas of having the festival in the evening or on a Saturday were also considered. So for this upcoming year, Glenbrook South High School will be hosting the 17th Annual Festival on Friday, April 30th. The biggest change in the festival this year is there will be no screening rooms. Instead, the program will consist of the scholarship awards (NATAS and Nadine Sterk), the announcement of the Student Television Award for Excellence winners, and the CTEC Video Festival award winners. We will still show clips from the top 3 videos of each category, but we will ask the winner to come on stage for a brief discussion of their project. A staff member will ask them a question, such as, "what was the biggest obstacle you overcame while working on this project." Our hope is that students will learn something from what other students went thru when they were creating their projects. In order to accommodate all of us for lunch (and because GBS is in school that day), we will start the lunch rotation at 10am. Just like in year's past, 1/2 of the group will have lunch first, and then the 2nd half will go. While one group is at lunch, we will have a program in the auditorium during that time that will be repeated for the 2nd half (details for this are still being worked out). No awards will be given out during the time that students are at lunch. After lunch, we will continue with the awards. More details regarding the exact events of the day will be sent out as we get closer to the festival day.

As of right now, each school is still limited to bringing 15 students and 2 adults to the festival. The possible availability of extra "tickets" will be discussed in a future email. Also know that each school will be required to help supervise a certain area for a certain amount of time during the festival. The assignments will be determined at a later date, but this will be necessary to prevent the vandalism that occurred last year and to make sure that our students stay in the areas they are supposed to be in. If you have a student who will not respect the authority of a staff member from another school, then I would think twice about bringing that student to the festival. Attending the festival should be a privilege.

Lastly, please note the changes in the Festival Categories. Animation has been condensed to just one category, no matter whether is was computer generated or not. Also, the News Package category has also been condensed to just one category. A few of the categories have also had changes in the maximum time for the entries - refer to the entry category sheet for details.

The rubrics for the 14 entry categories have (finally) been completed and formatted. Joe Macchia will be putting these rubrics up on our website hopefully today (www.ctectv.org). Thank you to everyone who contributed to changing the rubrics to better reflect what each category should be judged on.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the 9 folks who met last Friday at GBS to help finalize the rubrics and finalize the details for the Video Festival - Luke Palermo, Steve Douglass, Mark Ferguson, Joe Macchia, John Gelsomino, Kent Meister, Michael Lynch, Bill Gutman, and Tom Vogelsang.. Your input along with your passion for this organization is truly appreciated!

If you have any questions, please email me at lisa_traut@ipsd.org.

• 2010 Video Festival Packet

• Wednesday, February 3, 2010
• Lyons Township High School
• "Show and tell" meeting
  • Please bring something to share with the group - a lesson plan from your curriculum, a piece of equipment, etc.  Doesn't matter how big or how small, or how complex or simple it is.  The purpose of this day is to share what we do in the classrooms with our colleagues at other schools.
• Please RSVP by January 29th to: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dC1DZERIeVRnUm5YSzN4OUd5RWNobHc6MA