1. Texas Youth Creators Awards: The Best Award You Never Heard Of
Presented by Ariel Cummins

2. What is TYCA?
The Texas Media Awards were formed in 1988 to encourage school-aged residents to promote excellence in amateur media production in Texas. In 2016, the committee changed their name to reflect the growing number of ways children and teens can create and practice their maker skills. The committee also added a category for coding games.

3. Why should you care?
Libraries have long been hubs of innovation and technologies in schools. TYCA gives you a chance to show off the resources your library has to potential makers and artists.
Digital literacy is an increasingly important skill. Learning how to use a variety of programs and media helps students become adept not only at the particular software they are using, but also at how to acclimate themselves to new programs in general.
If you are a public librarian, TYCA offers an opportunity for partnership with local schools and homeschooling groups. Because each entry must be reviewed and submitted by a sponsoring librarian, you can serve as an important resource for students who do not have a traditional school library.
Additionally, all those who enter are invited to the awards ceremony at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference, which will be held in Dallas this year. How cool!

4. What categories can students compete in?
The contest divisions are
Additionally, each category is broken into four grade levels:
Animation
Black and white photography
Book trailers
Color photography
Coding: Games
Digital music composition
Graphic design
Multimedia presentation
Video recording
Web design
PK-2
3-5
6-8
9-12
Additionally, the most outstanding entry overall is awarded the Bob Bennett “Best of Show” Award.

5. Well that sounds great! How do I enter?
First things first: all materials must have an entry form submitted online by January 12, 2018.
There is an entry fee required, which is tiered based on the number of students who have worked on the project. The minimum fee is $10 for entries worked on by one to ten students, and the maximum fee is $30 for entries worked on by students.
There is a two-part entry process: fill out an entry form online at www/txla/org/tyca and then submit the student’s work. If entries can be submitted online, that is preferred, but entries can also be mailed to the TLA offices.

6. There’s an entry fee? Uh oh! How do I pay for that?
We wish that we could get rid of the entry fee, but it is unfortunately necessary to defray the costs of the award ceremony and prizes.
Some ways that previous librarians have paid for the fee include:
Getting a member of administration to “sponsor” the students and pay for the entry fees
Fundraising using traditional means including sales
Paying for the fee from the technology budget or other programming funds
Asking community members to sponsor a certain number of spots from the school

7. What are some tools my students can use to enter TYCA?
There are a plethora of paid and free apps out there that vary in quality from great to…not so great. Here are a few to try and get you started. Vetting apps to find the best of the best is a great way to show off how great librarians are at evaluation!

8. Animation Toontastic – iOS, Android, some Chromebooks. Free.
One of the best-known and most popular animation apps out there, Toontastic was created by Google and is easy to use and pretty!
Flipbook – website (requires Flash)
Draw a picture, then click the next button. Your previous picture shows up as a shadow, allowing you to draw a new frame with the old drawing as a guide. Keep going and you’ll make a virtual flipbook!
Animation Desk iOS, Android. Pro version is $20
A professional-level animation studio for students who really want to dig into animation and create their own works of art! Kind of pricey, but a powerful tool with a lot of potential.

9. Book Trailers
Some students may find animation tools helpful in making book trailers.
Photo Story – Windows, free
Photo Story is a free program for Windows that is easy to use and lets students create presentations out of photos and images. It may already be installed on your computer!
iMovie – iOS, macOS, free
Like Photo Story, iMovie is free and probably already installed on your Apple computer, iPhone, or iPad.
Animoto, website, subscription fee applies
A super-professional looking video creating software. If your library has a makerspace or uses a lot of edtech, then they may already have a subscription to Animoto. If so, book trailers are a great way to utilize it.

10. Coding: Games Scratch – website, free
The godfather of all game creation/coding websites for kids. Created by MIT, Scratch aims to make programming fun, has a lot of tutorials baked in, and kids can explore creations made by others.
Tynker – website, subscription based fee
Tynker aims to teach kids to code anything they want to code, and games are certainly on the table! A more expensive option that might make sense if your school already has a coding club or makerspace.
Code.org – website, free
Teaches kids to code from the ground up, with sandbox project modes that can be used to make games or apps

11. Multimedia Presentation
Powerpoint & Keynote –
The Windows and Mac presentation software you probably already know about and have on your computers. Many past winners in this category have used these faithful classics!
Prezi – website, free and subscription models
This web-based presentation software took the world by storm a few years ago, and offers an easy way to make dynamic presentations that aren’t slide-based.
Powtoon – website, free and subscription models
Another web-based presentation app that allows students to make animation-based presentations.

12. Contact Me! Ariel Cummins Youth Services Librarian
New Braunfels Public Library
Work:
Catch me on Instagram or Twitter