Disney’s ‘Frozen’ Inspires Video That Wins $25,000 Tech Makeover

Northwest Elementary wins $25,000 from NEC to buy new projectors, desktop monitors and digital signage.

Chrissy Winske

At Northwest Elementary School in Chatsworth, GA, teachers were plagued by classroom technology that was unreliable and that at times just didn’t work.

Aging projectors produced images so faint that it was difficult for children to see their lessons and the school’s computer lab contained buggy equipment that often froze.

Northwest administrators considered replacing the classroom projectors, but quickly realized they did not have the money to buy new technology for all 29 of the school’s classrooms. They also had issues with the computer lab that still needed to be addressed.

All that changed when a curriculum coach approached principal Paula Martin with an idea. She had seen a video contest advertised by NEC where one K-12 school could win $25,000 worth of technology. All Northwest had to do was put together a video explaining why they needed a technology makeover.

With the help of the school’s music teacher and her husband, Northwest Elementary put together a video inspired by Disney’s recent hit movie, Frozen. The video features a teacher and students singing to the tune of the movie’s title song “Let It Go,” but their version is called “Oh it Froze” and it highlights the struggle teachers and students experience in the computer lab on a daily basis.

Watch the winning video:

“We have a couple members of the school who are really talented with everything from video editing to just being dramatic,” Martin says. Those members of the school community were enlisted to star in the video musical and everyone featured is part of the school community.

The Contest

The way the NEC Tech Makeover Contest works is that the company chooses ten K-12 schools as finalists in the video competition. All submissions are then posted to the NEC website and the contest is opened for public voting.

“We went into it excited and felt that we had a good chance to be one of the ten,” Martin says.

They did better than that and Northwest Elementary went on to win the contest and with it the coveted $25,000 in tech. The school chose 29 NEC VE281X 2,800-lumen, high-brightness mobile projectors and digital signage as part of its prize winnings. Northwest classrooms now have projectors that produce bright, crisp images for students.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!