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New Tech Sparks New Opinions By NAHID MAHMUD Another year of new tech at Friends has sparked new opinions on how beneficial and, at times, frustrating, our school’s heavy reliance on technology may be. From Bram Hubbell’s paperless class to Lisa Ammirati’s complaints about Haiku, technology takes the center stage here at Friends.
This year, Haiku Learning - a new open-learning platform - replaces Moodle as Friends’ central hub for student assignments, assessment, and collaboration. According to Upper School Technology Integrator Erin Mumford, Haiku offers “better optimization with mobile devices” as well as “relative ease in adding or editing content,” which made the transition from Moodle to Haiku obvious and necessary. Some students agree. “Haiku is way better. It’s a prettier website, the app actually works and I just generally feel like teachers utilize it better,” says sophomore Jake Eisner. However, according to Mumford, even though Haiku proves to be more convenient and accessible than Moodle, a lot of its flaws pertain to its gradebook feature and lack of profile customization. Many students are similarly disgruntled with the way the system handles assignments. “I mean, I like the colors, but it takes a bunch of clicks to get where you need to go and in reality, very few teachers actually post homework on it,” says 10th grader Isabel Clements. Although Haiku may not appeal to everyone, its
Continued from Looking Back An Interview with Friends Seminary Alumni that no matter what kind of kid you were, you could fit in very well at Friends.” Friends Seminary has undergone many changes since the 1980s, when Donnelly and Annenberg were students here. Coming back to be part of the Friends Admissions Team, Donnelly has noticed these profound transformations. Friends was “smaller in the sense of the number of people, but also smaller in facilities,” Donnelly recalls. When she attended, the school had only five hundred students, with fifty in her grade. The Kelley House or “K” building was purchased when Donnelly was graduating, and the annex and townhouses were not part of the school yet. Technology has also been a major change that Friends has undertaken. The first computer lab at Friends was set up when Donnelly was in the Upper School. “We didn’t use computers, we hand wrote everything,” said Donnelly. Students twenty or thirty years ago did not have the benefits of email and Haiku, or using helpful computer resources, such and Word and Excel.
advantages in organizing curriculum and school work can’t be ignored and will therefore, according to Mumford, remain as the current hub for Friend’s academic resources.
This year also marked the unveiling of Apple’s new operating system iOS 8, which was launched two days before the new iPhone 6, on September 17th. However, it wasn’t until October 1st that the tech department gave the green light for Friends students to update their iPads, citing the need for compatibility testing for academic apps. Although not as game-changing as last year’s iOS 7, iOS 8 does offer some interesting upgrades:
“The communication element today is definitely different,” said Annenberg. “My kids will email their teachers to to ask them questions or to clarify something about an assignment. The idea of communicating with teachers off-hours is different--and great. Having that amount of access must be fantastic.” Although there are many different aspects of Friends Seminary that have changed over the years, Friends has held onto its spirit. “Its a school that has a heart and soul, and that felt very familiar to me, when I came back after so many years away,” said Donnelly. “The community, the meeting, the gathering, and the sense that so many people here know each other and care about each other. Friends is such a happy place, you walk in and you feel a real vibe.” “Friends is a school that has always maintained its soul, but has never been afraid to look forward, and change with the times. Its exciting for me to look back and reflect of the things that were wonderful for me as a student here, and see how things have grown and changed in such positive ways,” Donnelly said. The beginning of the iPad initiative in 2011.
Design: In terms of design, iOS 8 isn’t much to look at. It has the same, Windows-esque look Apple adopted with iOS 7. Even though the cosmetics of the operating system might not have changed, here are the three most noticeable visual differences on iOS 8: • Interactive notifications: • manage opened apps from the notifications banner w/out exiting current app • Redesigned multitasking interface: • double tap Home button to text/ Facetime with recent contacts • iPhone Safari features: • open Tab view to organize web pages and new sidebar to access reading materials Features: In addition to a more refined design, iOS 8 introduced some new features and improvements alongside Apple’s release of the iPhone 6. Considering how integrated iPads are in our curriculum here at Friends, here are the three most notable functionality changes on iOS 8:
• Quicktype • type using smart-keyboard’s predictive text engine and thirdparty variations • Revamped Messages app • add audio/video recordings as well as current/roaming location into conversations • Improved Spotlight • search data bases beyond that of your device (i.e. news, Apple stores, places, etc.) Although iOS 8 implements some design tweaks here and there for iDevices, it doesn’t do much else in terms of reinforcing Friends’ iPad Initiative into something greater. When asked what she would have liked to see appear in iOS 8 or in another future iOS update, Mumford emphasized “making Apple and Google products work more seamlessly together to make it easier for teachers and students to use.” She noted how Google calendars would often fail
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