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Let’s get fired up! CNN Ron Clark Academy Global Citizen






The Ron Clark Academy - CNN Global Citizen and Global Leader
CNN's piece on how RCA teaches its students how to be global citizens and global leaders.
Uploaded on May 3, 2011

Assessment criteria: As part of authoring critiques of digital storytelling in INTE 5340 three criterions are selected from Jason Ohler’s assessment traits.

Research (Score 1-10: 10 Points)

Presentation of facts necessary to support the story. The audience’s questions are answered in the facts presented.

Comments:
As I was watching this video I had doubts. Doubts about the ‘real’ success of a school that actually shows kids having fun AND performing well on tests. As these doubts or questions entered my head the story presented factual information to help me buy in to what is being presented. The factual information also answered my questions about tuition, who goes to this school, and how much do the kids actually enjoy it. Very brief yet informative - excellent.

Story Flow (Score 1-10: 10 Points)

Information was presented concisely and in organized fashion. No detours or tangents.

Comments:
The story began with the CNN journalist and narrator sliding down the slide into the school. This definitely grabbed my attention and helped me enter the mindset of ‘this is a fun school’ as well. The rest of the story unfolded from describing the brief history of Ron Clark Academy and how and change in mindset and pedagogy created the school. From there the audience can see the school from both student and teacher perspectives and then finally rounding it out with happy and engaged students performing at the top.

Engagement (Score 1-10: 10 Points)

The content in the story kept the audience involved as the story unfolded.

Comments:
This story was very inspiring to me. I was overjoyed to see the kids so happy and participating in an educational environment that engaged them. Naturally, I wanted to see this from a teacher’s perspective as well so just as I was getting ready to look for another video about teacher’s perspective the story showed how Ron Clark Academy trains their teachers. It was very interesting to hear “his real mission is teaching teachers.” This made me think about what teachers should be doing or learning and kept me engaged through the remainder of the story as it was shown from a teacher’s perspective and then finally back to the students.

Total Score 30/30

Other characteristics this assessment fails to capture:

This assessment fails to mention the requirements or other potential bureaucracy issues that are part of the considerations for launching and attending a radically different school. How did the academy craft education to meet both state and federal government requirements? I would like to see the sort of ‘how did they do it?’ and behind the scenes story as well.

How could this digital story be improved?

Someone really needs to find the original recording and increase the resolution and upload it!

Comments

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