Hearing the chanting of “School school school school school… Learning West Fargo Style!” to the tune of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” coming from a computer has become a regular event at the Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center. Media Specialist Lori Liebl came up with the idea to make a parody video using the latest song craze “Gangnam Style,” because she knew teenagers would find it appealing.
Liebl worked hard to produce the video so the Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center could participate in the Follett Challenge. The challenge consists of writing an essay and also making a video. Schools have weighted scores, 70 percent from the essay and 30 percent from the video. Judging of the video is based on votes and six judges the score the essay.
Liebl figured out about the challenge at where the Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center buys books and materials.
“It was advertising stuff like collaboration and creativity and those are things we already do,” Liebl said.
The Follett Corporation is giving six of the top entries Follett products and materials, such as books, worth up to $60,000. Anyone can vote for the video at the Follet Challenge website to help increase the number of votes on the video to the better the chances of Sheyenne winning.
“We’re hoping that there will be technology kinds of materials we will be able to get [if we win],” Liebl said. “When you look across the country at different schools and the things that they have it would be really nice to have some of those benefits that they have. We have good things here, but it’s amazing what other facilities have.”
The Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center is the only school in North Dakota participating in the Follett Challenge. Besides one school in Minnesota, most of the other schools are in the South. Follett’s event manager Lori Thompson said that a total of 114 schools have applied total.
“We look for educators who are designing programs that develop critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration between students and among educators,” Thompson said. “The Follett Challenge is an opportunity for educators across the United States to help promote their programs that teach the 21st century skills students need in order to be prepared for life after high school.”
The Follett Challenge has brought students at the Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center together, despite the split coming soon. All the teachers worked in a collaborative effort to write the essay for the challenge and a massive amount of students also partook in the challenge by participating in the video. Music teacher Joshua Grover wrote lyrics using the tune of “Gangnam Style” and his choir class sang it as background music.
“It was fun,” Freshman Kristin Aswege said. “It got my school spirit up a lot.”
Aside from receiving materials and products, the challenge could also change outlooks on libraries.
“I think winning this challenge would make people more aware about how library media centers have changed over the years,” Liebl said. “I think a lot of people that have not been in schools don’t know libraries do so many different things these days.”