We want stories from school students!

Mix & Mash gives students a chance to show off their creative work. By remixing Kiwi digital content into new forms of storytelling, New Zealand students have a chance to win some great prizes and have their work seen and shared.

You don’t need to use flash video and photo editors, or know everything about design and mashing up data. Your story could be a poem or short story, a comic, infographic or app. It might be fiction or non-fiction, still or moving image—it really is up to you. We want entries from students in all subject areas, including English, Media Studies, Design, Technology and Science. Scroll down for more about the great awards we have for school students.

Take a peek at a Mix & Mash entry by Year 7 Media Studies students at Havelock North Intermediate! Then come on through to see more Mix & Mash student stories.

Guides and activities

Mix & Mash is a great opportunity for students to learn some of the fundamental concepts of digital citizenship, including how to legally reuse creative works. The National Library and DigitalNZ have produced a guide to help you and your students enter the Mix and Mash competition.

Download the guide now:

• Free to mix: An educator’s guide to reusing digital content (PDF / 1.6MB)
• Free to mix: An educator’s guide to reusing digital content (DOC / 1.6MB)

The guide gives you information, activities and ideas to confidently and legally remix and reuse an extraordinarily rich store of Creative Commons and public domain material. It also gives an introduction to both copyright and the suite of Creative Commons licences, and outlines how students can apply CC licences to their own work. It will help your students to participate in the global remix community, while demonstrating both creativity and integrity.

Mix & Mash 2013 Lesson Plan

With the help of the Digital Literacy Project, Creative Commons Aotearoa NZ has put together this lesson plan on Copyright, Creative Commons and Mix & Mash

Beginners guide to Data Mashups

Teachers and students interested in data mashups can get great advice and guidance from the Mix & Mash Newbies’ guide to mashing up data that was sponsored by the Charities Commission in 2011.

Awards for students

Mix & Mash is searching for awesome primary, intermediate and secondary student work. You could create your submission as part of class, all by yourself, in a group and/or in your free time. We have a range of prizes up for grabs in this first showcase.

The cool part: if you are selected for showcasing by our judges your work will be splashed far and wide for the admiring public to see!

You’ll automatically be considered for the Supreme Student Storytelling Award of $2000 supported by the National Library of New Zealand at the end of 2013 for the best of the best.

NZTA Award for Best Safer Journeys Story

Are you participating as a school group? If your group submission helps us learn about road safety, you'll qualify for a special award. Be in to win $500 in vouchers for each team member (of up to six students) and $2000 in vouchers for your school. The NZTA Award for Best Safer Journeys Story will be announced at the end of 2013, and will go to the best qualifying work from across the Mix & Mash 2013 Showcases.

What does a great safer journeys story look like?

Your story will remix, re-incorporate, mashup open content or data to tell us a powerful message about road safety. Visit the NZTA Education Portal for everything you need to know about how to make journeys safer. Please do not submit narratives that are disaster scenarios or have catastrophe outcomes.

Ideas for August submissions about safer journeys

Check out the Your Safety First promotional cartoon from the Automobile Manufactures of America in 1956. It is a story about road safety that imagines the year 2000. It is available from the Prelinger Archives as a public domain resource, meaning there are no copyright restrictions. Remember, you need at least one piece of legally reuseable digital content from New Zealand too. Jump to our August content pools for ideas....

Don’t forget you have to follow the Mix & Mash 2013 rules