February 2, 2006

Dear Friends,

September, 1961. As a brand new teacher with an inflated opinion of my own dignity, I crept into the faculty room at Choate to run my first ditto master. Alleluia-no one was there. Fifty minutes later, my hands were covered with purple ink, there were crumpled papers all over the table; there were no finished copies. I had failed my first encounter with educational technology.

Three years later, when my job began to involve what was then called long-range planning; I became aware that the business office had an adding machine with the capacity for multiplication. Armed with this miraculous device, I dazzled my headmaster and his board with financial projections bursting with percentages.

Today I sit in my ergonomically correct chair, typing directly on to a miniscule chip, comfortable that the small printer on my desk will produce a modest number of copies quite quickly, and that the machine across the hall will make them at bewildering speed, on both sides, stapled or punched as I wish. At the press of a key, I can review previous letters, 'Google' the world for information, rewrite and revise, and doubtless perform a myriad other operations whose name I do not know. I can review the school's five-year financial projections on an accrual and/or a cash basis. I can read articles from general and specialized publications. I can keep up with pictures of my grand-children's rapid spurt from baby-hood to toddler-hood to child-hood. The world, it seems, is my oyster.

At The Bay School, after lengthy discussion and heart-searching, we made the decision to embrace computer technology as a basic tool. In doing so, we put into our students' hands a machine of great power-for good and ill, for matters of importance, for trivial games, for world-wide communication. When I see the freshmen receiving their laptops at the beginning of school, I feel as I did when my children started to drive a car-that they were terribly little to be driving so big and potentially dangerous a machine.

I take heart from our experience to date:

1. After the first flurry of discovery, most of our students most of the time are using their computers responsibly at school.
2. For all its quirkiness, our student-teacher intranet (e-Chalk) allows us to organize the students' work more flexibly and more thoroughly that I have ever seen in the past.
3. When things go awry, communication by e-mail allows a more thoughtful, measured response than the emotional telephone conversations of the past.
4. No small school, let alone a start-up, could afford the reference collection to which the library subscribes and which is available to all.

More important, we are able as a school to address the ethical and moral issues presented by the Internet while the students are still young and in a somewhat protected environment at home and at school. We can speak to the misuse of sexuality, whether it involves the over eight hundred thousand porn sites of today or the smuggled copies of Playboy of yore. We can identify and correct plagiarism when the penalties are lower, and not, as in college, potentially ending an academic career. We can advocate kind speech on line as well as in person.

What boggles my mind is that forty-five years from now, if Moore's law continues to hold, the capacity of computers will have grown so that what is on my desk today is as old-fashioned as the Choate ditto machine, and that our current students will be taking the lead in their wise use. As a school, we do not propose to leave to chance that they will at least have thought through the responsibilities of driving the ultimate thinking machine (with apologies to BMW.) This is a heavy and important task, in which all the adults in our students' lives share.

With every good hope for a bright if complex future,

And all best wishes as ever.

Fr. Malcolm

The Bay School Laptop Program

Educational technology is at the heart of The Bay School's mission to offer a program designed to prepare and inspire our students to live engaged and meaningful lives in the global world of this new century. While technology plays a part in so many ways each day in our lives together on campus, the school's laptop computer program provides the crucial infrastructure that builds and supports both the academic and extra-curricular areas of The Bay School curriculum. As Gregory Fleischer, Director of Educational Technology and teacher of digital media and electronic art, says "at the inception of The Bay School we made the important decision to empower ourselves and our students with the means to create and manage original content and communicate information with each other and the world --we implemented a 1:1 ratio student laptop program. At every step, we consider the question of how to integrate technology based first upon how it will improve student learning."

All Bay School students and faculty members receive personal laptop computers during orientation at the start of each academic year, and the laptops almost immediately become inseparable from everyday teaching and learning. Through connection to the school's wireless intranet network via their laptops, teachers post in-class exercises and resources as well as homework assignments and long range projects, and students are able to engage in in-class work as well as homework. Through connection to extensive online academic databases and worldwide research resources, learning and the sharing of information is expanded far beyond the classroom, campus, and the hours of the traditional school day. Students and faculty members are also able to access files posted on school servers, school email, and standardized school software at home which fosters both closer working relationships and the ability for students to engage in collaborative project work during and after the school day. Very importantly, students become self motivated to broaden their knowledge and mastery of computer applications and capabilities because they are encouraged on a daily basis by the need, desire, and relevance of learning.

The Bay School laptop program also realizes many important benefits on the school community level. It ensures equality of access to every student as a member of our community regardless of income or family background -- all students have the opportunity to participate fully in academic and social discourse. Further, the program fosters active student-centered learning in which individual learning styles and differences are recognized and supported which benefits the entire school community.

Our experience to date at The Bay School clearly confirms Dr. Jan Hawkins' observations published in The George Lucas Educational Foundation journal "Edutopia" in October 2005:

"True knowledge - understanding - develops through exploration, rumination, interpretation, judgment, and the application of information. Thoughtful work on projects and problems requires roaming through complex resources, seeking inspiration, messing around, making missteps and mistakes, and experiencing serendipitous discoveries. This kind of student learning and the in-depth interactions with teachers that it entails requires time. The intelligent use of technology can help to provide that time."

Science Laptop Laboratories

Laptop use in science classes and laboratories enables Bay School students to experience first-hand the methodology and techniques used by scientists in real life practice and research. Computer-based laboratory experiments utilize a variety of different 'probeware' including gas-pressure sensors, thermometers, pH meters and conductivity sensors. In biology classes, computers facilitate on-screen image capture directly from digital microscopes allowing students to save images and to highlight appropriate structures and interactions. And, across the science curriculum in daily class presentations, through the use of interactive diagramming students are able to make notes on images on their computers as the discussion progresses. Direct access to internet resources offers real-time access to programs and projects underway around the world.

A Recent Laboratory Investigation:
Bay School Sophomore Biology Students Study the Role of Anti-Oxidants in Lengthening Life

Around the World - Dialogues in Language

Laptop computers enable Bay School students of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and French to hone their speaking skills, view foreign language videos on the Web, and speak in their respective languages in communicating with students around the world. Through the use of foreign language software Bay School students work on written skills through typing essays, writing skits and dialogs - even in Chinese characters.

Language labs have become a thing of the past as Bay School students utilize their lap top computers fitted with earphones and microphones to practice and record their verbal skills utilizing audio CDs. Verbal skills are also practiced by visiting online sites such as 'Survival' where students speak engaged in everyday real-life scenarios. Mandarin 2 students in Robin Workman's classes routinely exchange video pen pal postings with their sister school in Beijing through the Web portal "Student Planet". Our Bay School students have recently put together video clips filmed for their autobiography projects and have sequenced original soundtracks to accompany the visuals. Once uploaded to the Web, their Chinese counterparts respond in less time than it takes to dial Beijing by telephone -- a wonderfully rich dialogue has evolved.

Technology and The Arts
Contemporary Dance

Whether you are for or against what defines Hip Hop style, it is impossible to ignore its impact on the contemporary culture of our youth today. It is everywhere -- in fashion, music, dance styles, advertisements, dialect, and attitude. How has this style that was once confined to the neighborhoods of the South Bronx expanded to achieve world wide popularity? The answer is: Technology.

Let's go back and remember the moment we no longer needed to get up off of the couch to manually change the channel on our TV sets, or the excitement we felt when we could replace our TV 'bunny ears' with cable boxes. While our homes were filling with technology, Music Television (MTV) was created. Not only could we hear our music, we now had a face, a story, and a style to watch. With today's technological powers the medium of video has become a multi-billion dollar business and a necessity in the success of today's main stream artists.

Bay School students in the Hip Hop dance elective during the first term were exposed to the technological side of music videos. As a class we compared and contrasted music videos by deconstructing their images, lyrical content, story lines and cultural messages. The students formed opinions, had open discussions and began training to look at music videos with a more critical eye. As a final project, students formed groups and were asked to create, direct, record, and edit their own music videos. Along with the video they were asked to write their own lyrics and to record their own musical compositions.

This process began by experimenting with Bay School resources in the media lab. Students were introduced to Garage BandTM- a program used to compose and record music. Students began creating their personal sounds and styles. They shared and helped each other in working out beats, and quickly became eager to listen to their creations amplified on the stereo system. They became perfectionists -- coming in during their free time to work in the lab. Student Roberto Flores stated "I didn't realize the different layers there were in creating music, I could mix styles of disco and classical piano to make a hip hop beat." Matt Baron, who co-created the lyrics and music for his video, probably re-recorded his track more than a dozen times to get it perfect. (He then asked for the program as a Christmas gift.) Mikhail Alexander commented "Making beats was a good experience. It influenced me to make more music on my own." It became apparent that the Bay School media lab was rapidly evolving into a miniature music production studio.

The video production side was just as fascinating. Students introduced to iMovieTM quickly became enthralled with the design choices that were available to them. They became very creative and were very conscious of how the images directly reflected the lyrics and musical score. Students also experienced a number of reality checks, realizing how much time, effort and precision it took to craft a finished Hip Hop video. Inevitable upset occurred as a result of unplanned deletions and lost or erased material -- the 'dark side' of technology we all have experienced in one way or another. Jocelyn Recinos explained, "I didn't realize editing would be that hard and I had to put a lot of work into it." Students even stayed after school very late to finish up their editing process. When I asked Joaquin Winer why he was staying so late, he replied, "It's my job to edit the film". Wow, now they were engaged, becoming responsible, and taking real pride in their work!

I witnessed a new artist emerging in each student. The experience of using computers to create their own music videos has forever changed how the dance students hear and "see" music— and hopefully sparked a new way to artistically self-express using technology. Whether one's opinion about Hip Hop influence on our youth culture is positive or negative, we cannot deny that it can be used as a powerful vehicle to learn computer skills, art, technology, creative writing, patience, focus and pride.

Paula Plessas teaches Dance classes at The Bay School.

Student Clubs and Activities

The Bay School's founding classes of 2008 and 2009 have been enthusiastically engaged in launching a number of extracurricular clubs and activities in conjunction with members of the faculty, serving as advisors. The clubs meet weekly during the class day on Wednesdays as well as planning and organizing all-school social events and drama productions in the evenings and on weekends. Club activities are a great way for students to gather together to celebrate common interests and they help to build a shared sense of community. These activities are only the beginning!

Here's a snapshot:

The Bay School Student Council
Student Council has been an invaluable resource of student leadership this year. The group meets weekly to discuss the current culture of the school, to give feedback on policies, and to make suggestions about a wide range of issues from snacks to the use of laptops at lunch. So far this year input from council members has resulted in a couple of real policy changes and even the addition of bagels as a snack! Additionally, several council members have been sharing the role of facilitating announcements at daily morning meetings. During the next few months we will be working together to create the structure for student council next year. This is a great group and I am lucky to have them as student leaders.

— Moneeka Settles, Dean of Students

The Bay School Engineering Club
With the New Year came the kickoff of the Engineering Club's new project: the 2006 Monterey ROV Competition. Last spring a dozen students built an underwater vehicle with video cameras - a Remotely Operated Vehicle, or ROV for short -- and entered it in a regional competition sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Using only video images sent from below the surface, our team had to maneuver through an underwater obstacle course and complete several complicated tasks while two hundred spectators looked on. We did not win first place, but were praised for our engineering presentation and overall design.

The competition will be held again this year at the end of April, with a new, more difficult mission. Sponsored by physics teacher and mechanical engineer Tom Henning, the students will work many afternoons and weekends, sometimes with the help of outside engineer/mentors. Many of our sophomores have returned to work on the project this year, but there is room for interested students, especially freshmen, who would like to have a taste of real engineering. No swimming skills are required, although they are a plus when things go wrong!

The Math Club
With the support and guidance of Math teacher Dave Wang the Math Club meets weekly - currently studying elementary probability and combinatorics, which is the study of how to count the number of ways that events can occur without explicitly counting them one at a time. This is in preparation for entrance in the American Math Competition scheduled to begin on February 15th .

Fantasy Gaming Club
Gaming enthusiasts are in the middle of their first Magic: the Gathering Tournament, a sealed deck tournament using cards from Ravnica, the most recent Magic card set. Math teacher Dave Wang is advisor to this club as well.

The Chess Club
Not to be overshadowed by the card players, the Chess Club is currently engaged in "MEGA Chess" - playing with pieces that stand at least 2 feet tall! It's a three dimensional challenge and lots of fun. Humanities teacher Bill Brown is the chess master and advisor. Plans are currently being hatched for an all-school open tournament - perhaps to be held outdoors once the winter rains subside.

The Bay School Yearbook
Eight talented students comprise the Yearbook Committee this year. Assisted by Bay School parent and professional graphic designer Chris Weber and Digital Arts teacher Gregory Fleischer, the group is already hard at work creating volume 2 of The Bay School annual, a.k.a. Yearbook. Students are 'on assignment' photographing all school events and capturing all those candids when nobody is watching. Having intentionally decided to publish their own 'custom' yearbook, club members are gleeful to work amongst 10 silvery G5 towers with their steely 20" LCDs, merrily clicking menus in Adobe InDesign and PhotoShop CS2. Student designers are finding the new media lab on campus to be an amazingly efficient and capable desktop publishing hub. Even this group of Info Agers is occasionally awed by the speed of a 1-gigabit, fiber optic transfer rate that zips their files around the school network like a virtual lightning strike!

The Bay School "Current" -- Student Newspaper
December 21st , 2005 marked the first publication of The Bay School student newspaper aptly titled the "Current". In addition to covering major (and minor) school events, the publication features student opinion pieces as well as entertainment and restaurant reviews, current events, and creative writing.

Read Issue #1 and keep your eyes out for issue #2 coming up soon.

The Bay School "Current" Requires Adobe Acrobat 7.0 to view.

Athletics - Winter Activities Update
Steve Glass - Athletic Director

While Bay School girls' and boys' basketball teams continue to make their school proud out on the courts, our two non-competitive physical activities groups are building physical stamina and skills out on the field and at the YMCA Main Post Gym - working out 4 days each week after classes.

Physical Conditioning at the 'Y'
Throughout the winter trimester twenty-eight Bay School students have participated in the afternoon weight training activity, offered at the Presidio YMCA. Our partnership with the Y has been invaluable in our effort to offer productive and worthwhile physical activities for all our students, and we have the additional privilege this winter of direct supervision from two YMCA fitness instructors. EJ and Justin put together a program for our students that offered a variety of classes each week (kick boxing, Pilates, and spinning), a choice of games ranging from dodge ball to basketball, and the option of working out on the fitness floor. Students logged their progress on cardiovascular machines and weights, and were never short of opportunities to get more fit, and to have fun. We appreciate all the YMCA's efforts to work with us and to provide quality programs, and look forward to the continued growth and mutual benefits of our partnership. Don't forget that ALL Bay School students may take advantage of their individual memberships at the Y!

— Peter Olrich, Coach

Group Games
Everyone appears to be enjoying group games this winter, and as coaches, we are enjoying ourselves, too. We have played a variety of games; including ultimate Frisbee, soccer, kickball, football, dodge ball, and a student favorite, capture the flag, better known simply as 'CTF'. Student Jack Sporer enthusiastically comments," Group Games is an awesome experience. Not only is it fun and exhilarating, it helped bridge sophomore-freshman and student-teacher gaps. I would do it again in a heartbeat!"

Student creativity in strategizing has been impressive, and so has enthusiasm. Skill level varies from student to student and game to game, but every day we are achieving our goal of exercising while having fun. As coaches, we are enjoying the student interaction and we greatly appreciate the effort and positive attitudes of our students in group games.

— Chandra King and Jim Scrivano, Coaches

A Visit from Orphanage – Digital Hollywood at the Presidio

On January 12th at all-school Gathering the Bay School community was treated to a dynamic multi-media presentation arranged by Keith Zwölfer, Education Program Manager of the SF Film Society, and given by cinematographer Aaron Rhodes who works nearby in the Presidio for Orphanage Animation Studios, a cutting-edge visual effects company. Founded in 1999 by visual effects veterans of George Lucas' Industrial Light + Magic, the company has become a leading force in high-end visual effects and animation services. Working from its state-of-the-art- production facilities in the Presidio, Orphanage's award-winning VFX division has created jaw-dropping effects for numerous Hollywood blockbusters including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Day After Tomorrow, Seabiscuit, and is currently in production on Superman Returns.

Aaron gave Bay School students a view into the exciting world of special effects animation and discussed the role of visual effects in the cinematic storytelling process. He encouraged students to further investigate the medium and provided valuable research sources and local resources for youth filmmakers. We are grateful to both the SF Film Society and Orphanage for their stimulating presentation and we look forward to building future collaboration with them.

Visit the Orphanage online

From the Stacks – Book Group Update
Kathleen Riley, Book Group Coordinator

Last week on Tuesday morning students met in book groups for their first discussion of the new session. Selections and groups have varied widely, and so have reactions to the books and book group experiences. At the conclusion of each session, students are asked to write responses evaluating their books and their group experience. They have generally enjoyed the ability they have to choose their books this year and, through trial and error, they are figuring out what makes a group successful, fun, and worthwhile. The books that have received the most positive reviews and led to fruitful discussions vary widely in subject matter and style. Here are some examples:

The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt, has provided ample fodder for discussion with its many short stories about "evolution in action". Some of the heartiest discussions this year have been in the groups reading this book. Students report:

• "It was a light and easy read . it was the most fun to read and I was engaged in discussions the most during this session"
• "Everyone completed the reading, and the discussions were always lively and interesting"

Meanwhile, others were less enthusiastic:

• "This book was highly entertaining, but only for so long. After the midpoint of the book it started to repeat itself and get boring."

Never Go Home Again, a coming of age novel by Shannon Holmes, received the following student responses:

• "This book has some funny or interesting parts but was way too explicit and some parts were boring or dull …"
• "I give this book two stars because I wasn't satisfied with its content. It was too explicit and the events didn't seem real at all."

Finally, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher, has been hailed as a modern classic by reviewers. Bay School students who have recently finished reading and reviewing it seem to agree:

• "A moving story about friendship and family"
• "A touching story of friendship and loyalty"
• "I thought this was a great book . I totally recommend this book"
• "A very good book . exciting."

Review current Book Group selections

Recent Bay School Press Coverage and Publication

The Bay School sophomore writing and research course titled Research and the Community is discussed in the current issue of the Presidio Post, the Presidio's quarterly newsletter.
Read the article.

Humanities teacher Lori Cohen has co-authored an article titled: "Unveiling Students' Perceptions about Women in Islam" published in the January 2005 issue of the English Journal.
Read the article.