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Executive Director's Letter 
ACME is back to school and our staff is working diligently with educators to get their new classes up and running online. Even as we look forward to the new academic year, we have had one eye on the past. We recently completed our assessments for ACME's 2011-2012 Performance Report and it was exceptional. Before we loose ourselves in the busy activities of a new school year, I want to take this moment to share with our community some of the highlights and outcomes from last school year.
ACME performed extraordinarily well in 2011-2012, winning three awards and exceeding all goals set by its federal grantor: The National Telecommunications and Information Agency and the California Emerging Technology Fund. I want to recognize and thank our outstanding pool of volunteer mentors, educators, students, and staff for helping our community to deliver these results.
A highlight that was made in 2012 was receiving the United States Distance Learning Association's (USDLA) 21ST CENTURY AWARD FOR BEST PRACTICES IN DISTANCE LEARNING. The international award recognized ACME's platform for excellence in distance education. The USDLA's association's members operate in and influence 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market.
ACME was aso honored with two state-wide Don and Rosemary Vial Awards from the California Emerging Technology Fund for outstanding performance in helping to close the digital divide.
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Latest Success Metrics:
Our 2011-2012 Evaluation report is in. ACME is evaluated by a third party independent evaluator. Highlights on the findings:
- 93% of our participating high school seniors graduated
- Teachers reported that 100% of their graduating ACME seniors are attending college; 93% will be attending a four year college.
- Teachers reported that 100% of their students' technology knowledge and 91% of students' communication skills increased due to using ACME
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Performance Report
ACME was one of eleven non- profit partners selected for the statewide initiative "Access to Careers and Technology" (ACT), led by The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and co-funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA).
The two year grant ended in August. ACME met and/or exceeded all of its NTIA and internal goals, serving 10,879 students nationwide, (over 9,800 in California). Some of the performance highlights were: |
- Exceeded Adult Training Completions by 125%
- Exceeded Youth Training Completions by 108%
- Exceeded Teacher Training Completions by 149%
- Refurbishment and Distribution of 900 DreamWorks donated computers to low-income students and families.
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Looking Ahead: Individual Memberships:
ACME's high-capacity V.3 online learning platform exceeded performance expectations during its closed beta period last year.
This Spring, ACME worked with Alumni to complete a successful Individual Members' pilot. ACME is pleased to announce that we will be moving forward with our long-term goal of expanding membership to qualified individual students this fall. More details coming soon!
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Welcome CSU-SAW Students
ACME welcomes the CSU Summer Arts Workshop attendees to our community. Students representing programs such as Ringling, Sheridan, Fullerton, Laguna College of Art & Design, Cal State's - Fullerton, San Jose and Long Beach, and California College of the Arts are now uploading work and making great comments online.
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ACME Alumni, & Pro Mentors:
Are you an ACME alumnus working in the industry? Please update us on where you are working now. Highlighting your on ACME's Hall of Fame can inspire thousands of kids.
is the nation's largest online arts and animation mentoring program for underserved students. Each year, thousands of low and moderate-income students rely on ACME's mentoring community to support and inspire their dreams and guide their creative skills development.
ACME needs volunteer mentors to help keep our vital programs up and running. Mentoring takes only a couple of hours per week or per month. Please contact us to volunteer.
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ACME Special Thanks:
ACME would not be the community it is without our mentors and direct connection to industry and supporters. We would like to again acknowledge those below with special thanks.
Cesare Montero, of DreamWorks Animation - Mentor of the Year for mentoring and engaging beyond the call of duty.
Chad Helmuth, of Sony Picture Imageworks for scheduling and facilitating so many exceptional mentoring voices on our telecasts.
Marilyn Friedman, Jim Conrads and Dina Strada, of DreamWorks for the very big donation of computers and facilitating DreamWorks volunteer pro mentors on ACME.
Dawn Rivera Ernster, of Disney Animation for her inclusion of ACME students in Disney's special workshops.
Aubry Mintz, of CSU and Henri Brownell, ACME student for facilitating ACME's introduction to CSU Summer Arts Workshop attendees.
2011-2012 will be a tough act to beat, but we are looking forward to the challenge.
Best Regards,
Deborah Brooks
Executive Director
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| In Their Own Words |
Comments from ACME Students from the 2011-2012 survey
It was always a delight to have legitimate and actually helpful critique from other students and professionals in the same field.
It is the best place to get constructive criticism for work-everyone is civil, respectful and many users are open to suggestions. I have learned how to adjust my work (and the quality thereof) to be much better. I'd say my drawing skills shot up tenfold and I'm much more confident in my recreational drawing.
I believe that ACME has made school much more enjoyable and taught me to communicate better with my classmates. I look forward to computer animation every day, as well as getting to critique others and work towards making my work better. I really enjoy the challenge and that has made me want to make all of my work outside ACME better.
ACME is such a great website to upload artwork to or to get feedback on your work. It would be great if every student at school would get to experience being on ACME.
Thank you for giving me the understanding of how to create scenes and motion pictures that give the audience strong, tense feelings towards serious issues or conflicts among the characters in the story.
I am able to get critique on my work at home, not just at school.
I was taking Animation at the same time as I was taking Art History, I had an opportunity to utilize animation analysis on the AP Art History Exam-assessing Mary Cassatt's piece "The Tub" and how it utilizes character appeal
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| In Their Own Words |
Comments from ACME Students from the 2011-2012 survey
It helps you communicate professionally with others and get really helpful feedback from all over the U.S. and the world.
I like the whole process of students being responsible for their learning. This program emulates real-life experiences by presenting students with challenges and having them solve the problem in a creative way.
[Student] work is stronger because the want to "get it right" before posting and they value the responses the get.
It encourages respect, motivation, and excitement about learning.
I find that having essentially all student projects and comments on one site makes grading much simpler. Also, having students review peer projects keeps them on their toes and try to do better.
Allows me to easily incorporate a written component to the course work and give students ample examples of the desired project outcome.
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