Features

My teacher just added me on Facebook! Social Media at SLA

November 20, 2011 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Isabela Supovitz-Aznar

Staff Writer

Science Leadership Academy is very different from most schools in the way that the students and teachers build strong relationships, while maintaining their professionalism. It is acceptable to have a teachers’ phone numbers and call or text them, to add or be added by your teachers on Facebook, and to chat them as long as students keep their conversations professional to a certain degree.

At many schools this kind of contact is frowned upon, or even banned. But at SLA, many students are fine with the practice. “It kind of adds to our school environment that we can talk to our teachers and feel safe talking to them” says Sophomore Jhonas Dunakin. “It makes the school an overall better environment.”

At SLA, teachers want students to feel comfortable, but to still be able to take on the responsibility of doing their own work. As a result, students are given a lot of flexibility about how and when they seek support. When students need help and support to achieve the goals we want to, our teachers are always there to help. Part of the support system is that students can email teachers, or instant message them when they want criticism, advice, or have questions on anything we learned in school.

Although it is optional for teachers to add their students on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and iChat, it makes the community more cohesive.

Math Teacher Sunil Reddy said his original policy was that he wasn’t going to friend students for the sake of maintaining his image as a teacher. Things like his pictures from college weren’t really that bad, but it just wasn’t stuff he wanted students to see.

Over time, however, he changed his mind. “Eventually I just had so many friend requests from students that I just decided to make a new account, this way I didn’t have to worry about censorship.”

Other teachers choose not to add students until they graduate, while others go ahead and request students. Whatever path they choose in social media, teachers take the time to personalize learning at SLA, which in a way helps students prepare for college and the real world.

Seniors Chase Scholarship Money

November 18, 2011 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Kristi Bezhani

Staff Writer

Students with promising and exceptional talent deserve the spotlight and a college scholarship. Many of this year’s graduation students need a future financial plan to cover the college bills.

There are many merit scholarships out there that students can apply for. However, students often don’t realize how much effort goes into the application process. Winning the money takes work.

One of the great and well known programs is the Gates Millennium scholars program. The application process involves using writing and public speaking skills to be selected. Each year, 1,000 students are selected. They must have a GPA of 3.3 or higher, be eligible for free and reduced lunch, and be a person of color.

A member of SLA’s first class, Shareesa Bollers, was the first student from the school to be awarded the scholarship. When applying for this scholarship, Bollers was also doing college applications at the same time, which made it hard to cope with when also applying for a scholarship.

“It was a very long application, 26 pages. I started early and tried to work on it a bit, for at least an hour after school every day,” said Bollers. The work paid off — Bollers now has a full scholarship to Bard College, where she is currently a sophomore.

Another SLA student that is currently pursuing scholarship money is senior Gina Dukes. She is currently a finalist for money from QuestBridge.

When asked about the process of applying, she said that, “because I had known for months that I would be applying for this scholarship, I was well prepared and informed of everything that I had to do.”

Dukes wasted no time in starting her application. It opened online in August, and Duke was already requesting letters of recommendation and taking care of her test scores.

Dukes found out about the QuestBridge program through an announcement on BuildOn’s blog . She decided to pursue the College Prep Scholarship, and was invited to an admissions conference at Yale. Now a senior, she is eligible for QuestBridge’s National College Match Scholarship, which is similar to the Gates Milinnieum in the way that it provides students with a full ride scholarship, only QuestBridge matchers students with a particular school.

Dukes does not think that SLA students are taking enough advantage of these kinds of programs.

“Not many people know about this great scholarship, and there should be way more people taking advantage of it. I tried to spread the word, (through Facebook and also verbally) but in many cases, people either had heard about it too late and couldn’t apply, or they didn’t want to put forth the effor

t required in the application. Questbridge for example asks for a lot, but it is worth it in the end.”

The best way for students to find out about such scholars programs, are through councilors, and teachers with recommendations. Once students find out about programs such as Gates and QuestBridge, they don’t take as much advantage of them as they should. This is mainly because often when students seek or are nominated for a scholarship, they tend to be a senior, which makes life harder considering that students have plenty to scramble through on top of applying for scholarships.

Student of the Week: Cheyenne Pagan

November 18, 2011 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Ayanna Robinson

Staff Writer

“I didn’t get an art class this year and I wanted to spread my art talents with the community and that was when I was like ‘Alright. I’m going to start an art club.’”

Staring into the face of defeat, Junior Cheyenne Pagan turned what most would consider a loss into a great win for SLA. Following the school’s maxim of going after what inspires you, Pagan started the club to give back to this and future generations of SLA students. Many “art involved” students love the idea of bringing even more outlets for artistic expression.

“Art gives everyone in SLA the opportunity to express their individual creativity.” Says Senior Donna Survillo. “The fact that the school is pretty much a gallery of everyone’s art makes students feel more comfortable when it comes to expressing themselves elsewhere.”

The Art Club runs off anything its contributors bring to the table. An impromptu origami class was a favorite for Cheyenne. Creating her own take on origami samples reminded her of why she fell in love with art in the first place.

“I always see art and I’m like, OMG that’s so cool, but I don’t have that kind of money. Alright, let me copy it so I can have one of my own.”

Luckily, she has an amazing talent and ends up creating pieces that surprise even herself.

“[My art] is a visual representation of not only my talent but how I feel at the moment and what’s going on,” says Pagan. “But it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else.”

But the art isn’t just a way to express talent or emotions; it stems from something more.

“Ever since I was younger it was a way to connect with my dad who now im not in touch with.” For Pagan, this club isn’t just about the material product. She values the process of learning and growing that comes with every piece.

As of right now the club is small and organized mostly on Facebook (http://on.fb.me/sXlcDt). Everyone tries to stay away from strict schedules to protect the freedom the club was designed around. Although she remains the founder, Cheyenne avoids dictating at all costs. She sticks to the belief that the club was meant as an equal space for any age group to teach or be taught.

The sharing of space works especially well because of one teacher, Ms. Marcie Hull. “Room 301 is the Art Studio, not Ms. Hull’s room.” She says. “Ms. Hull’s desk is located in this room, that is my space, so kids have the opportunity to use the space in an art related way any way they choose.” Ms. Hull has been very supportive throughout Cheyenne’s high school art career, watching her grow independently as well as exercising her “drawing muscle”. The biggest reason for all her support may come from her love of student driven learning. “It benefits the school to have students inspired by what they do and the world and to pass that passion on to other students. It has a wonderful ripple effect and makes us all better. ”

Though not clear, the future of the club is sure to be a bright one. Perhaps a capstone for the enthusiastic junior, she just wants to create something lasting. Cheyenne has big ideas to merge the efforts of the club and BuildOn by having contributors put together an art show if they’re willing.

As of right now, the growth of the club has been stunted by schoolwide benchmarks, preventing many from attending. Even with the smallest number of participants Cheynne is grateful. “It brings me absolute happiness to know people are interested. Coming into this I didn’t think people were going to come and I thought that I would get shut down like a person performing but people are coming in and they’re actually interested.”

Locker Talk: Your Fave Spot

November 3, 2011 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Laptop Tips and Tricks For Freshmen (and Upperclassmen Too)

November 1, 2011 by lpahomov 4 Comments

By Marina Stuart

Staff Writer

At SLA, laptops are the pencils, the paper, the textbook, the calculator, the most efficient way to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world. They are the most important tool ever, and should be treated as such.

This article will help teach underclassmen and remind upperclassmen how to take care of and use the laptop to it’s fullest extent.

How to Properly Treat a

Laptop
How to carry it: in your bag, or with two hands.
What not to do: carry it by the lid, carry it with one hand, type and walk at the same time, or anything else that could endanger the life of your lappie. All of the previous example could ruin your laptop or cause it to someday end up in the tech office, where once it goes in…you won’t see it for about two weeks.

How to Preserve Your Battery

– Do not always keep your computer plugged in. Letting the battery drain is a natural part of life and is healthy for you laptop. Now in school your laptop might be losing power quickly so here are a few ways to keep it from doing that.
– Do not keep your brigh

tness up to the fullest extent.
– Remember to quit applications, too many open will drain your battery and make your computer run slower.
– When you are not using your computer for long periods of time, shut it down, this saves battery power.
All of these habits will serve you well in later years. By the time you ar a senior your battery could be at 8 percent by lunch, and that is never fun.

General Safety Tips
– Keep your computer clean by not eating or drinking around them. If your computer does get dirty, spray expo board cleaner on a paper towel and wipe it down carefully. Keyboard covers do work, but are not necessary for keeping your computer safe.
– Chargers break when used for long periods of time, almost every SLAer will need a replacement changer sometime during their four years. To avoid, try to save up for when you do need to replace it.
– Wrapping the thinner cord around the “wings” on the charger actually hurts it more then helps, so try to avoid doing that. An alternative is to wrap the smaller cord in the “bunny ears” style. With a part of the cord looped in the air and the rest wrapped around the actual battery.

Screen shot 2011-11-01 at 1.26.45 PM — A properly wrapped laptop charger.

Other Useful Tricks
– Go to your iChat preferences and turn off the sound. This avoids awkward situations when you open iChat in class and everyone knows it. Or, don’t use iChat in class.
– Before submitting anything in a text box on Moodle, highlight the entire thing and copy it. Then submit. This will avoid situations where you might lose your work because Moodle has logged you out.
– If you aren’t using the internet, please turn off your WiFi, this makes it easier for everyone else to get on the Internet.
– Save everything, every 10 minutes.
– If an application isn’t working, force quit by typing “option” + “command” + “esc.”
– Bring headphones, they make everything better.
– Get a USB drive, life will be so much simpler during benchmark season.

Proper Vocabulary
“Spinny wheel of doom:” the rainbow wheel that appear when an application is not responding.
“Red light of death:” the light that appears in the headphone jack of your computer when it is not working.
“Apple c” and “apple v:” the shortcut keys for copy and pasting. On the newer computers, the apple key was renamed the “command” key. But it does the same action.
“Apple q it:” the shortcut key for quitting out of an application. Usually it is used as a verb.

Everyone should remember these rules when it comes to laptop conduct.

For Seniors: You already know these rules, but it doesn’t matter. Your computers are almost utterly useless now, but they work very well as heaters, paper weights, or flat surfaces
.