Shakespeare with a Twist: Using Thinglink in MS English

 Middle School students are preparing for their Romeo and Juliet monologues using an online caricature development site called Thinglink that allows students to create and share interactive images and videos. Peter Jennings reports "Essentially, I was looking for a way to help our students prep for their Romeo and Juliet monologues, which each student will perform for their class (some will perform for the entire middle school). The iPad apps helped them to take on the role of the character, to climb inside their character's head, and to do some research on previous performances.

Jennings continues, " Each student created a caricature of the character performing their monologue using the "Caricatura" app. This became the background for a "ThingLink," an interactive image with text and videos. Using the "ThingLink" app, students wrote a description, a letter, a journal entry, and "tweets" from their character to bolster their understanding of the character in general. To help them prepare the specific performance, they created a modern-day "translation" of their monologue, linked to a video of a professional performance of the scene, and created a video of themselves performing the monologue. All of this content is linked directly on the image of the character that they created. "

Lower School Tinker Lab: Product Design

Entrepreneurship Event in Upper School

Germantown Academy’s Upper School Entrepreneurship Class had the tremendous opportunity to hear and learn from several alumni entrepreneurs prior to spring break in the Honickman Auditorium, including Patrick Fitzgerald ’93 (DreamIt Ventures, Lecturer at Wharton), Rich Podulka '95 (United American Builders Inc.), Krista Sherkey ’98 (Streamline6 Communications, LLC), and Mason Wartman ’06 (Rosa’s Fresh Pizza).

"We are finding more and more opportunities for bringing GA’s alumni back to campus to interact with, share life stories, and help mentor our students as well as reconnect with our faculty,” said Director of Alumni Relations Heather Durkin. “It is so rewarding to see how much everyone involved takes away from the experience. These sorts of activities enhance the students’ understanding of how their education applies in 'real life' and how an alum can connect to today’s GA.”

Each graduate had the chance to share how he or she built their businesses and what they’ve learned along the way. They also participated in a question and answer session with the students.

The Entrepreneurship Class was offered for the first time this year as a first semester mini-mester course. Its companion class during the second semester is Marketing and Branding.  Several other classes have been developed in a strand of Business, Management, and Entrepreneurship programming taught by Tony Garvan, Tom Taft, David Martin, and Chidi Asoluka's New Community Project which focuses on social entrepreneurship.  Students from all of these content area participated int he event which was designed to build a community of students with like interests who can share in and build on each others work.

Entrepreneurship at Middle School Career Day

Seventh Grader Sasha C. has a lot in common with Mr. Matt Paul, of Matt Paul Sports, both are entrepreneurs.  Sure, Sasha isn't running her own company just yet, but it was her entrepreneurial thinking that gave birth to the first Middle School Career Day.  Bayard Templeton, 7th Grade Head Advisor, reports "We are at a time in our middle school where student-initiated causes, events, and solutions to problems are more present than ever. As teachers, we try to contribute here and there and support when we can, but the bottom line is that more and more things that are getting done here at GA are getting done because students are at the center of it. Career Day is a culmination of an unprecedented amount of work and organization by a seventh grader, taking a unique idea and running with it much farther than many would have expected. With the support of classmates Lauren Purcell, John Karr, and Lily Ernst, Sasha Capers is the reason this event is happening."

"Over the last few months, Sasha has called meetings with the student government reps and faculty advisors, looking at both the “nuts and bolts” of how the day would run, as well as the bigger vision of what this day should be about. She walked across the parking lot to Goodman House to meet with Mrs. Zighelbohm to strategize the best ways to find speakers. She wrote each one of the speakers emails to ask for and encourage their participation. And at 8pm last night, Sasha was still responding to emails as last-minute needs arose."  

Of the sixteen professionals that took time out of their busy schedules to meet and inspire GA's 7th graders, one Matt Paul, spoke to the joys and challenges of being an entrepreneur.  Matt Paul Sports, aims to "transform the lives of young people through the power of sports."  Students interested in "being their own boss" sat in rapt attention as they heard about the success and (necessary pitfalls) of running our own business and scaling it over time.

Lower School Nature Nook Maker Space: Kids Working with Kids

Upper School students with the help of tech director Bill Kingsbury worked with Lower School students to construct some of the play elements in their outdoor maker and play space, The Nature Nook.