Schools Out Forever

As an instructor who has assigned digital video projects, it is interesting to consider the digital rhetorics of the "Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge" on the White House website.

Obviously media-production is important in the three online videos from finalists Clark Montessori Jr. & Sr. High School in Cincinnati, OH, Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, MI, and Denver School of Science and Technology in Denver, CO. I'm currently writing about the relationship between reality TV and online video, so this contest in which compelling videos earn viewer votes that might bring President Obama to their campus to give the school's commencement address.

The three finalist videos all use music, editing, personal testimony, and other conventions recognizable from the mix of professional and vernacular videography that indicates many successful Internet commodities.