Todd Online

On a chilly Saturday evening on February 23rd, twelve Todd girls got snazzy, brought bagged dinners aboard a little yellow school bus and talked, sang, joked and snapped photos through a 40 minute adventure to White Plains, New York. Our bus driver, Joe Davis, heroically got us there with minutes to spare!

The Orville A. Todd Girls’ Book Club enjoyed a night out at Purchase University’s Center for Performing Arts for a special Harlem Theatre Troupe performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The play was set in modern-day Harlem, reflecting an up-dated version of the angst between two young, star-crossed lovers from rival inner-city families. This up-dated version predictably involved ritual gang warfare that necessitated the use of modern day weaponry. Guns and knives, slick character disparagements and graphic insults were interspersed with suggestive gesticulations that unfortunately, did not go over the heads of our modern day tweeners. They inferred rather quickly and readily digested each and every innuendo! They did however seem especially enthralled with the updated masquerade ball where our young Romeo first set eyes on his ravishing Juliet. The music was current and the dances wild and abandoned.

Apart from the garbled and heavily punctuated Shakespearean dialect which often hindered full enjoyment of the many artistic liberties taken in this performance, The Harlem Theater Troupe put on a wonderful show. The performance even sparked one Book Club member to comment on the possibilities of attending Purchase University for the Performing Arts.
Over all, this Girls’ Book Club night out was both safe and successful!

Kim Rogers, Science Teacher, Jen Bender, Cooperating Teacher and Karen Vitek, Technology Integration Specialist have been working together to make an online course for the Chemistry Unit for 8th grade students. The course has been set up using the online course development tool, Moodle. The teachers have been adding video clips, web links, quiz pages, outlines, and more to enrich this online class experience. A new interactive feature of the SmartBoard software, Smart Notebook is also being utilized to help students review key concepts. The students will also participate in a project called Project TestDrive designed to evaluate the classroom usefulness of resources available on the National Science Digital Library website (www.ndsl.org). The resources will be incorporated into the online course and students and teachers will evaluate whether they felt the resources were useful in understanding the material being taught. Online course participation is one of the goals from the district’s technology plan. You can learn more about the district technology plan at www.spackenkillschools.org/district/techplan.pdf.

Students from the Todd Technology Club and their advisor, Mrs. Joy, presented their club at a D.C. Boces conference in February.  The conference included technology integrators and coordinators for 12 Dutchess County Schools.  Among the students who attended were Kyle Green, Tanvi Jaluka, Mike Wallace, Shawn Kollesar, and Zach Keller-Coffey.  Students discusses their role in the technology club and future plans for workshops and events.  Kyle Green presented his Moodle, which he spent several days creating during a workshop.  Tanvi discussed Comic Life and demonstrated how it can be used in the classroom.  Shawn, Zach, and Mike showed how to make a cheap SmartBoard with a blue tooth adaptor, a Wii remote, and an LED pen.  Look for information coming home soon on future presentation and free community workshops led by our gifted Todd Teen Techies.