High School Technology Highlights
High School TV Studio
Niskayuna High School’s new TV Studio boasts all the state-of-the-art equipment and capabilities of a professional television production facility. At 625 square feet, the TV Studio has the space and lighting for two sets -- usually a news desk and a separate 18x12-foot "green screen" wall for "keying" out the color green and replacing it with video or still images as a background.
Students in the Mass Media/Mass Communication class learn to operate the studio’s two Panasonic P2HD cameras, a SmartFade TC Lighting Board, and lights. Also, students take command in the TV control room, running a Broadcast Pix Granite 1000 video switcher, a Marshall Fader, a Yamaha 01V96 Sound Board, and a Mac computer with Final Cut Pro for live TV recording and editing.
After school hours, the Broadcasting Club meets weekly to produce creative videos while learning the technical side of both live and recorded TV.
A production example from the Mass Media class can be found here.
Lord of the Flies Wiki
 
Chris Holoday (high school English teacher) and Gene Schatoff (media specialist) collaborated on creating a student wiki related to the "Lord of the Flies" novel. Students were asked to post thoughts on the leadership qualities of primary characters in the book. In addition to these thoughts, students were also able to comment on the postings of their peers. The result was a very dynamic interaction between students about who represented the strongest and weakest leaders among the literary characters.
High School Vocabulary Wiki
In Jami Sautter’s high school English 10 Honors class, students use wiki web pages to explore and learn their vocabulary words. At the beginning of each two week cycle, pairs of students are given vocabulary words for the week. Each vocabulary word is associated with a "theme" within the entire year’s vocabulary unit (e.g. tragedy, change, greed, power, etc). Within the vocabulary wiki, students create an instructional page for their word. These pages can be created either in school or at home, and are used to deliver a brief lesson to the class on the word. On "vocabulary days", students present their wiki pages using an LCD projector and interactive whiteboard. They teach their words to the class using images, definitions, sample sentences, synonyms, antonyms, and other strategies.
Students are encouraged to use the wiki on their own to review vocabulary words, as they are continuously tested on all vocabulary throughout the school year. Thus, students have ongoing access to the information they need, including supplementary PowerPoint presentations created by the teacher, to help them continue to learn and use these words. In addition, students post comments on the vocabulary wiki pages as they encounter vocabulary words in their outside reading or in class novels. The commenting feature allows students to continue to practice using "old" words, and to share new ways to use the word with classmates as they study and explore the wiki pages.
Digital Baseball Stories
 
Groups of students in Ms. Claron’s "Sports Literature" high school class researched chose an aspect of baseball to research and presented their information by creating a digital story. The groups either analyzed the science of the sandlot, the evolution of baseball equipment, players facing adversity, the art of radio, or baseball’s influence on pop culture. As part of this activity, the class visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY and interviewed baseball experts. Ms. Claron worked with media specialist Gene Schatoff to teach her seniors how to use the PhotoStory 3 software. Their final s were 5-7 minute digital stories that showcased their knowledge of the baseball topic researched.
Earth Science Uses New Learning Tools
 The science teachers at Niskayuna High School are certainly taking advantage of the new classroom technology provided by the district’s recent building project!
Brandon Hakulin and Joe Spollen have been using their Promethean interactive whiteboards and software as regular tools in their classrooms. Brandon has created original software "flipcharts" for his Earth Science classes to demonstrate sediment porosity and permeability and its effect on groundwater. He modifies pictures with his own drawings to create dynamic images that he and his students can manipulate in class. He is also downloading flipcharts created by other teachers from the "Promethean Planet" website and modifying those to serve his needs. He has mastered the ability to make interactive "containers" within the software, and is working on creating flipcharts that can be used by students for test review.
Joe’s efforts have been focused on creating flipcharts for his weather unit. The interactive whiteboard, combined with Promethean software flipcharts, is an ideal technology tool for teaching this topic. Anyone who watches a TV weather report can understand the benefits of being able to zoom in & out on specific regions of a map, as well as the advantages of being able to interactively move "weather fronts" and "pressure systems" across a map to investigate weather changes. The Promethean board and software have added these capabilities to the repertoire of our science teachers.
In addition to the new Promethean technology, science teachers are also utilizing their new document cameras for displaying three-dimensional objects such as rocks, and for more easily sharing physical demonstrations with an entire class. These new document cameras are also able to capture digital snapshots and then save these images to a computer for future use. By inserting the "snapshots" into Promethean software flipcharts, the user can annotate over and manipulate the images.
My World and Welcome to It: A Sense of Place
My World and Welcome to It is the title of a series of exhibitions that have come about through the collaboration between the Viewpoint Gallery's Studio Art Project and the photography department at Niskayuna High School. The My World and Welcome to It: A Sense of Place exhibition was the third collaboration between the two.
A "sense of place" is the attribution of non-material characteristics to a place. It is the "soul" of the place.
Adult Studio Art project students and teen-aged high school students were each given the same problem: to visually convey a "sense of place" by utilizing Adobe Photoshop in the construction of a composite work of art. As the adult students had very little experience with computers, not to mention Adobe Photoshop, each was teamed up with one or two teenage mentors.
Biology Class Using Document Cameras
Music to Our Ears
Brian Mooney teaches MIDI classes that focus on creating electronic compositions using Macintosh computers, Korg X5d MIDI keyboards, and sequencing software. GarageBand and Logic Pro software allow students to create a wide range of styles of music, from abstract electronica to pop arrangements, with traditional instruments such as piano, percussion, and strings. Students are also able to record and edit live performances to be incorporated into MIDI performances. Students find it exciting to be their own composers, performers, and producers!
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Essentially this is how it works... A note is played on the keyboard which is translated into a digital signal (on/off). Other signals determine factors such as velocity (how hard the key is pressed), effects applied to the instrument, and more. This information can be recorded as a "loop". In loop-based music, short fragments of repeatable music are looped, or cycled, to create larger phrases. Multiple loops using multiple instruments can be layered to create the sense of having a full arrangement. Thus a song is created.
Teaching the class involves the use of an LCD projector connected to the teacher computer and a document camera. Brian is able to demonstrate a new capability on the computer and have it projected to the front of the room where everyone can view it. There is also a sound system with a control panel that is linked to every computer in the lab. This allows audio from any computer to be routed through the surround speakers mounted at the front and back of the room. In this way, students can quickly and easily have their compositions auditioned for the rest of the class.
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