VIDEO CONTEST FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

Although we didn't make the final cut, we have to admit that the collaborative effort of working on this classroom project provided benefits beyond those of winning any contest. It was an awesome experience for our 22 fifth grade students at Lake Hills.

Here is the email we received on Friday afternoon. For those of you who haven't seen the music video we submitted, scroll down past the email to the media window to view it.

Dear Mr. Chittenden,

Thank you for your submission to the Interactive Classroom Makeover Contest!

The contest judges were tasked with the difficult responsibility of selecting 15 finalists from nearly 300 video submissions representing schools from 40 states and four countries (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Each submission was an amazing demonstration of collaboration and creativity and while your video, Learnin' Up, was not one of the finalists, it will continue to be viewed and enjoyed by thousands of people as we enter the final round.

You should be very proud of what you and your students accomplished. According to our tracking, more than 350,000 people have already visited the site and had an opportunity to watch the videos. Please note, during the first few days of the voting period, your entry will not be accessible. However beginning next week, ALL the videos will be accessible by going directly to your video's page. And once voting has ended on November 14, all videos will be re-posted to the home page.

We encourage you to support your peers by voting for your favorite video after 12 noon ET (16:00 GMT) on Friday October 31 by going to www.eimakeover.com. (The online ratings count for 30% of the final score.) The voting will close at 12 noon ET (16:00 GMT) on Friday, November 14, and the winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 3.

Once again we, and our co-sponsors, want to thank and congratulate you and your students for taking part in the contest and delivering an important message to other educators, students and parents around the world.