About ISMF
What is the International Student Media Festival?
The International Student Media Festival celebrates outstanding classroom media projects. Students and teachers from kindergarten through college are honored in a three-day event that includes workshops, screenings of winning entries, and an awards ceremony. It has now grown to be one of the oldest and largest events of its kind. ISMF has been sponsored since 1974 by the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT), a non-profit organization improving instruction through technology.
Why Celebrate Student Produced Media?
Student media projects such as live action video, website design, animation and photography foster learning across the curriculum. At the elementary and junior high school levels, reading comprehension, writing skills and math facilities are developed. In addition to those areas, high school and college students increase their abilities to plan, analyze, and interpret results. Cooperation and leadership flourish where student media is encouraged.
Student created media, through its involvement in the world of computers, video, sound, and photography, is a proven avenue to increasing student participation in the classroom learning environment. State and National educational standards are met and surpassed in the exciting atmosphere of creativity cultivated through the use of student media projects. Future academic and employment opportunities increase in relationship to the rise in technological proficiency.
How Do I Enter a Media Project Into ISMF?
A teacher or parent agrees to be the “Sponsor” for student entries. The Sponsor submits information about the project(s) to ISMF through an online entry process. Once a project has been entered, the Sponsor will have access to online tools to track and edit the project information. Please read our Entry Guide for details.
The International Student Media Festival generally accepts entries from April 1 to June 1, each year. For International entries, the deadline to submit is June 30. If there is a problem with meeting a deadline date, please contact us.
Who attends the Festival?
Every year thousands of students in all grades from across the country, as well as internationally, produce media for educational purposes, dramatic use, and web publication, as well as classroom projects. These are then submitted for judging in local and state competitions, such as those held by the Florida Association of Media Educators, the Georgia Student Media Festival, the Oklahoma Student Media Festival, the Association of Indiana Media Educators, and the California Student Media Festival. All of these other festivals then submit their winners to the International Student Media Festival for another level of competition. However, it is not a prerequisite that a media project be entered in other media festivals before being entered in ISMF.
Projects are judged in categories including Live Action video, Sequential Stills slideshows, Interactive Stills, Photography, Web Design, Podcasts, and Animation.
What Happens at the Festival?
The festival is usually three to four days long and is jam packed with hands-on, creative learning experiences for students, teachers, and parents. Various workshops for all ages are offered by our Corporate Partners throughout the festival. In the past we’ve offered workshop topics such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, iMovie, claymation, Garageband, and many more! (Workshops are subject to change each year).
There is also an awards ceremony during the festival where students are recognized for their achievements. Outstanding projects will receive an Excellence in Media Production award. From these, we cull out Judges’ Favorites and the highly-acclaimed Best of Festival designation.
