24 September 2009

OGS student essay competitions

The following is an announcement from the Ontario Genealogical Society.

The Ontario Genealogical Society has established two essay competitions for students. Both require a paper to be written on a topic within family history. Both carry a prize of $500 and publication in Families.

The Dr. Don Brearley Genealogical Essay Prize is open to secondary school students in grades 11 and 12. For this, the first year, it is open to Toronto District School Board students only. In future years it will be available to students in other Ontario school boards. See the Guidelines for complete information. Submission deadline is February 26, 2010.

The Mike Brede Genealogical Essay Prize is open to any full-time student in a university or community college who is either a resident of Ontario or attending an Ontario university or community college. See the Guidelines for complete information. Submission deadline is February 26, 2010.

Warning. The following is opinion.

With this initiative the management and Board of the OGS miss an opportunity and demonstrate lack of imagination. Another essay competition is something their grandparents would have felt comfortable with, familiar territory for them. Students today, on the other hand, are interested in expressing themselves through less staid means, multimedia and web content. It would have been eye opening for the Society if they were faced with evaluating YouTube videos, blogs, maybe even a series of tweets

2 comments:

M. Diane Rogers said...

I surely agree with you, John - even though as a genealogical journal editor myself I'm always interested in articles and reports. Still we can print photo essays, tweet compilations, etc. in our journals and publish videos on our websites. And, it's not only the young who working with the 'new media' either. Some of us grandparents aren't paper bound anymore.

Mike More said...

I wonder if the requirements to produce to genealogical standards could be met through some other means but I am not at the leading edge of technology. But I cam imagine the difficulty of judging the various types of submissions. Perhaps some of the critics would be willing to volunteer to judge.