TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER WINTER 2015

In This Issue: Apps to Explore

Articles of Interest

Classroom Initiatives

Faculty Workshops

Making and Tinkering

Spotted in the Schoolhouse

TED Talks of Interest

As a popular television show claims, “successful restaurants

don’t open, they launch.” Likewise, the revamped

Nightingale technology department launched in September

2014 with a brand new “open door” policy. More than just a

physical change, the technology department ushered in a

new mission of transparency, openness, and communication. The team hit the ground running with newly defined roles,

a full slate of workshops, and one-on-one conferences.

Looking ahead, we are moving toward an expanded role in

classrooms, faculty dialogues, and professional development

opportunities. This seasonal newsletter provides an

opportunity for us to shine a spotlight on some of the great

technology work being done both in the schoolhouse and

around the world, and will feature articles of interest,

technology news, and classroom spotlights. We’re very

excited about this new way to communicate with you, and we hope you are as well. Enjoy!

Faculty Workshops

The following workshops were offered to Nightingale faculty members this fall:

NovemberGetting Started with MacBooks Screencasting Collaboration in the Cloud

DecemberBlended Learning Collaboration in the Cloud MacBook Airs

Social Media and Your Daughter

The Ten Commandments of Instagram Common sense tips for digital citizenship on Instagram

Tech Tidbits

Quick and Helpful Hints Goo.gl Goo.gl provides a free widget similar to Bitly or TinyUrl that allows you to take your long, cumbersome html link and shorten it. The more manageable size won’t break in e-mails and can be more easily copied. Just go to Goo.gl and insert a link!

TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER Getting Connected | Staying in Touch | Looking Ahead

Tech@Nightingale: Opening Doors

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 1

TED Talks of Interest

What’s Next in 3D Printing?

Just like his beloved grandfather, Avi Reichental is a maker of things. The difference is that he can use 3D printers to make almost anything out of almost any material. Reichental tours us through the possibilities of 3D printing, from printed candy to custom-made sneakers and everything in between.

Life Lessons Through Tinkering

Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials, and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges, and even a roller coaster!

Technology isn’t

static, and neither is the environment

at Nightingale. For the first time

ever this past

September, faculty

were offered Apple

computers as an

alternative to their

traditional PC

laptops. Sixty

faculty members selected the Mac and excitement is high, with

positive feedback on the change from many quarters. As the

year progresses, we are taking advantage of the ability to create

a seamless handoff environment between the Apple computers

and our existing iPads, and training has been ongoing.

To better support our faculty 1:1 computing initiative and

steadily growing student use, our entire network is undergoing a massive upgrade that will see network speed and capacity

increase by 1000%. This work is set to be completed in

December 2014.

Continuing workshops

will support faculty in their Macbook

development, as we

work towards a

seamless handoff

environment which will enhance the

educational experience.

TED

TED

Adapting and Changing

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 2

Link and ThinkArticles of Interest

Science Fair Set to Change the World Students from around the world saving the world, one project at a time.

Blended Learning Around the Country What blended, flipped, and distance learning look like around the country, and some unique ways educators are utilizing technology to support education.

Robotics Projects Encourage Girls to Engage in STEM Tinker Squads, physics in action, incorporating blended learning, and so much more are packed into this all-girls school in PA.

The Women Who Shaped the Computer AgeFrom Ada Lovelace to Silicon Valley, female “computers” are critical to the development of the tech world as we currently know it.

!!

In this issue, we’d like to highlight some of the fantastic technology

integration work which

takes place in the Lower

School. In Class III, the

girls learn foundational

iPad skills under the guidance of Ms. Winthrop and Ms. Galassi, and begin

cross-disciplinary work,

which prepares them for Middle and Upper

School. A major project

each of the girls maintains throughout the year is her own

personal blog, which she continues in Class IV. The blogs are

pieces of rich educational content that serve multiple

purposes, allowing the teachers to touch on technology

integration, iPad skills, creativity, collaboration, and digital

citizenship, along with academic content like reading and

writing. They also open new avenues for cross-disciplinary

work. For example, the PE department can keep track of the

girls’ weekend physical activity through their blog entries.

Over time, the blogs become repositories of the girls’ work

(they capture images of their work and record themselves

explaining why they’ve chosen to archive that piece) and

reflections on what they have learned, serving as a digital

portfolio of their time in Class III. In the Musings section,

students are encouraged to share observations on any topic

and to respond to their classmates, learning digital

citizenship in the process: everything they say and do online

is representative of their self, and they are taught to always

have that in mind when interacting. !!!!!!!!

Class III Digital Classroom

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 3

Apps to Explore

Check out the apps below, which you may find useful for yourself or for using together with your daughter.

FlipboardA news aggregate where you can discover, collect and share all the news you care about. Personalize your news feed on your mobile device! Available at the App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, and Blackberry World.

ColAR MixPrint, color, and see drawings in hand-animated 3D worlds. Fact-filled narration accompanies many of the pre-made coloring sheets. Available at the App Store and Google Play.

Post It Plus Take snapshots of your scattered sticky notes and organize them into digital, easy to use files.

!!!

Necessity is the Mother of all Invention…

!!!!!!!…While fearlessness is the mother of reinvention! Under the

guidance of Ms. Blandford, Class X students in Foundations

of Computer Science are learning both of these principles as

they work on inventions of their own design. Students were

challenged to identify an everyday problem, work to find a

solution, and then conceptualize and design that solution.

Using TinkerCad, they’ve pulled together their cross-

curricular knowledge of engineering, math, science, and art,

thrown in some straightforward ingenuity, and worked

through the design process from inception to fabrication to

field testing. Fabrication is happening via our MakerBot 3D

printer, an integral tool in our nascent “maker” program.

The designs created by the girls are wonderfully varied and

address a host of daily problems from smudged nails to

creating personal levitation, and have allowed the girls to

tap into a sense of creativity and playfulness while

reinforcing the serious academic STEAM underpinnings of

the course. Making is a fantastic opportunity to introduce or

continue interdisciplinary problem solving, allow plenty of

space for self directed learning, and make room for

creativity, risk taking, and learning from failure. !

!!!

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 4

Spotted in the Schoolhouse

Things to See in Our Halls ✦ Ms. Guggenheimer and Ms.

Epstein using ExplainEverything and Google Drive in their lessons on Ancient China.

✦ Ms. Hart using ExplainEverything with Class V, as the students learn to write and sing musical notes.

✦ Mr. Donnelly using Moodle for AP review distance-learning sessions.

✦ Mr. Meikle using iMovie with Class III to film commercials for their woodworking clock projects.

✦ Ms. Birch’s Class VII students using Notability to explore music concepts in more depth.

✦ Ms. Qualman and Ms. Anderson’s Class IV girls using their iPads to create interactive multimedia blogs.

✦ Class X using TinkerCad and the Makerbot to design their own solutions to everyday problems.

✦ Ms. Kernell’s music students using an app to accurately tune their guitars in class.

!!!

!

Class III girls have been

learning the basics of

robotics by working with

LEGO WeDo. Once the

girls learned the basics,

they were challenged to create a robot that

would follow simple

programming: begin,

complete an action, play

a sound, repeat, and

end. Many of the designs went through three or more iterations

before coming to completion, and the monkey and puppy

shown here are just two examples of what the girls created. The collaborative groups drew knowledge from many sources,

including their previous building experience and the gear

structures and building schematics in their LEGO books. Most

often, however, their learning came through experimentation

and trials. Once they moved on to programming, the girls were

hard pressed to stop at

the basic commands and

most groups met and

exceeded the

requirements, creating

multistep programs

which had their creations

moving, rotating, and

playing a variety of

sounds. To cap off the

project, they each

presented their creation

to the class.

Class III will continue with their robotics studies throughout the year. Next up? Kinetic architecture and robotics!

!!!!

Problem Solving Through Creativity

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 5

NightingaleTech At-A-Glance

✦ Our current daily device average is over 1,300 devices in use in the schoolhouse. By the end of December, we’ll have upgraded our network capacity and speed by 1000% to support this usage.

✦ The LMS pilot program is well underway and surveys have gone out to all users. Many thanks to all teachers and staff involved in the planning of this project!

✦ Some faculty members are beginning to explore distance and blended learning opportunities, which will allow us to extend learning even further beyond the blue doors.

✦ We are currently piloting Chromebooks in some classrooms. A Chromebook is a Google-based cloud computer that has a small footprint and huge collaborative ability.

✦ Our maker program is beginning to take shape—look for exciting news about this project in the upcoming months!

!!!!

Spotlight on: Blended Learning Some students might resist the idea of “Saturday school,” but not

those in Ms. Vivion’s Environmental Science class. Comprised of

girls from Classes X, XI, and XII, the class works in a blended

learning environment, which means that face-to-face classroom

time is reduced and some of that classwork is delivered digitally.

Every two weeks, the class drops one period and moves to the

cloud for instruction,

resources, materials,

and opportunities for

interaction. Projects

designed within the

cloud are ongoing and

allow multiple entry

points for student

collaboration,

participation and

research, and also

permit students to work in timeframes that take every girl into

account. With online learning, each student is free to work and

contribute at her own pace. Feedback can become deeper, as

online spaces for feedback such as forums and blogs not only

encourage more discourse among students, but also allow

students to plan out thoughtful written responses to topics that

might be raised as questions in class. Ms. Vivion and the

Environmental Science class utilize the Finalsite blog creator to

contribute responses to articles, and girls are asked to write and

respond to their classmates’ blogs. Screencasting is used to

deliver content, and additional content such as videos and

companion articles are housed on the class Finalsite page. The

girls are also expected to check the calendar regularly for their

assignments and deadlines, and to use WikiSpaces to turn in

projects.

Above: Ms. Vivion presents her work to the Academic Affairs committee.

!!!!!!!!

Issue I, Volume I Winter 2015

Technology Newsletter 6