03 December 2009

Public Diplomacy Web Contest Open to International, U.S. Students

“Doors to Diplomacy” judges look more for content than flashy Web design

 

A team of four students ages 16 and 17 and their teacher from SMA 1 Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, won the top international prize in the 2009 Doors to Diplomacy online competition with their Web project showcasing their traditional Minangkabau culture.

The top international team of students from Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia, created a Web project on preserving their Minangkabau culture.

By Melissa Quijada
Staff Writer

Washington — Young participants in an international online diplomacy competition are hopping on the social networking train to create and promote their projects, which help teach others about international issues and the value of diplomacy.

“In the last few years, students have promoted their projects via Web 2.0 [interactive] tools like Twitter and Facebook. They are putting their videos on YouTube,” says Yvonne Andrés, executive director of the Global SchoolNet Foundation, which co-sponsors and manages the Doors to Diplomacy online competition for the U.S. State Department.

The 2009 Doors to Diplomacy winners — students from the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the U.S. state of Georgia — use tools such as Twitter, videos, animation, comment forums and interactive games to help deliver their messages. The Sumatran students hope to motivate other students and community members to appreciate and preserve traditional arts and culture, while the Georgian students created a fictional character named Captain Water to teach about water conservation.

The winners were selected from Web sites created by 203 student teams from 34 countries.

For the eighth year in a row, the Doors to Diplomacy contest invites international and American students to promote positive online global relations. The deadline for entries is March 23, 2010. For the contest, teams of two to four students, ages 12–19, and up to two adult coaches create Web projects on international issues and propose diplomatic solutions.

Winners will be announced in May 2010. Each student member of the two winning teams receives a $2,000 scholarship, and their coaches’ schools earn a $500 cash award. Past international winners have hailed from Bulgaria, India, Macedonia, Mexico, Taiwan and Uzbekistan.

WEB SITE CONTENT VERSUS FLASHY DESIGN

While the use of social networking tools can be “a plus,” says Janice Clark of the State Department, the Doors to Diplomacy judges “look for informative content over interactivity and flashy design.”  

“The real emphasis of the contest is on the quality of learning and understanding of diplomacy and international cooperation,” says Clark, who helps judge the contest. “Does the research seem thorough? Did the students serve as ‘ambassadors’ in their communities by reaching out to discuss and inform on the issue their project is addressing?”

Many teams must overcome challenges to complete their projects, she said. “For international team members such as the 2008 winners from Bulgaria, infrastructure was a major obstacle: they had one computer between the four team members and no car. Despite that, the Bulgarian team still visited a nuclear power plant, conducted a community survey, and created their Web site to win first prize.” (See “Web Site Contest Open to American, International Students.”)

An extra challenge for international entries is that the Web site has to be in English.

 

Four students ages 16 to 18 and their teacher from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Georgia, were the top American team in the 2009 Doors to Diplomacy contest for their Web site featuring an animated character, Captain Water, to promote water conservation.

The top American team from Tyrone, Georgia, created an animated character, Captain Water, for their Web project on water conservation.

“Some of the teams have to carefully schedule their Internet time, and some [personal computers and connections] are slower. So they definitely face challenges,” says Clark. “That’s one of the reasons why we don’t put too much stock in the glitz of the end product.”

The students are required to help build an audience for their projects through publicity and community projects, and they also must evaluate four other teams’ entries, a task that usually turns out to be a great learning experience, says Clark.

2009 WINNERS

The 2009 winners from Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone, Georgia, created an animated, blue-hair superhero, Captain Water, who promotes water conservation. They created the site in response to Georgia’s drought last year, and Captain Water sends regular updates on the crisis via Twitter and e-mail. “It is vital for Georgians and others to realize that water is a limited precious resource and that people take it for granted,” the students wrote in their project summary.

“The Captain Water team became proactive ambassadors for their water conservation message by using social media to advertise their Web site,” says Andrés. “They also became spokespersons for their project by visiting local elementary schools and making presentations.”

The Indonesian winners from SMA 1 Padang, Sumatra, produced a Web site promoting art and cultural youth activities of the Minangkabau, an ethnic group of the West Sumatra highlands. The Web site features a blog and several YouTube videos that exhibit various aspects of Minangkabau culture, including traditional music and clothing.

“Our lives cannot be separated from arts and culture, because arts and culture represent the identities of a country or a society and can be the ‘door to diplomacy’,” wrote the Indonesian team in their project description.

In 2006, a group of young Ghanaian football (soccer) fans created what Andrés considers one of the most inspiring projects to date. The students utilized their limited resources by relying on a borrowed laptop and an Internet café nearly 20 kilometers from their high school to send their work to students in San Diego, California, who then created the Web site for them. (See “Students in Macedonia, Ghana Win State Department Award.”)

For a winning presentation, students need to concentrate on original research, incorporate diplomacy in all aspects and create a comprehensive step-by-step project narrative, documenting how they built the Web site, according to Andrés.

“A project needs to be interactive, so it’s not like a brochure,” she says. “These type of sites grow in value the more people use it.”

In addition to the top two prizes, this year Doors to Diplomacy gave special recognition to entries from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, India, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and several U.S. states.

The winning 2009 Web sites are: Preserving Arts and Culture of Minangkabau Through Youth Activities and Captain Water Helps Teach Kids How To Conserve Water.

More information about the 2010 Doors to Diplomacy competition is available on the Web site of Global SchoolNet, a nonprofit group dedicated to collaborative online learning. Also see the State Department contest announcement and an article about the contest on the State Department Dipnote blog.