September 2019

TJTODAY

vol 5 issue 1

thomas jefferson high school for science and technology || sept. 6, 2019 6560 braddock rd. alexandria, va 22312

PRESSING the

STARTBUTTON The arrival of FCPSOn laptops at Jefferson opens the school year with new teaching opportunities and conflicting views.

CONTENTS EDITORIAL BOARD Editors-in-Chief Justin Chang Irina Lee Grace Mak Online Managing Editor Sonia Kanchan Pratika Katiyar Broadcast Executive Producer Ashley Huang

04

04

06

06

Features

Sci-Tech

04

06

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Sid Ram

TEAM LEADERS Vikram Achuthan Aumena Choudry Stuthi Iyer Anuj Khemka Minjoo Song

ADVISER Erinn Harris

tjTODAY is the official newsmagazine of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology published by the journalism staff. The staff is deeply committed to a code of journalistic ethics that demands the exercise of accuracy, good judgment and impartiality. The content of tjTODAY is determined by the editorial board. Unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the staff of tjTODAY, but not necessarily the opinions of individual editors.

Power Up

New FCPS laptops bring new teaching opportunities admist mixed opinions

E-ICON Challenge

Jefferson sends a team to a coding competition in South Korea

CONTENTS AND ONLINE || SEPTEMBER 06, 2019 03

Have You Seen What We’ve Been Doing?

Visit tjtoday.org for our lastest articles as well as online versions of what you see in this issue.

LOUDOUN BUSES OUT

GET YOUR GAME ON: ESPORTS ARE COMING TO VHSL

JEFFERSON’S FOOTBALL TEAM WILL FIELD VARSITY AND JV TEAMS

TJSTAR LOSES ITS GLOW

Submit a Letter to the Editor WHY WRITE A LETTER? • • • • •

You want to speak out.

You want to persuade others.

You want to be heard.

You have an idea.

You want to educate the public

Letters should be no more than 300 words, refer to a specific article, and include the writer’s full name and email address.

HOW DO I WRITE A LETTER? • • • •

Visit www.tjtoday.org.

Select “Get in Touch’ on the top menu.

Select “Submit a Letter to the Editor.”

Fill out the form and click submit.

POWER UP New laptops provided by FCPSOn brings new teaching opportunities to Jefferson amidst mixed opinions

Jutin Chang, Irina Lee, and Grace Mak || Editors-in-Chief Kathy Li || Illustrator

L

aptops guaranteed to every student. that the newly provided laptops will not be able to What began as a call for technological perform at the standard they expect of their personal improvement has become a source of devices. Students taking Japanese were able to disagreement as some students worry over the choice download the necessary keyboard, but are only able of technology. to type English characters with their school-given laptops.

OVERVIEW

FCPSOn began as a pilot program in 2016 with the Chantilly Pyramid and eLearning Backpack organizations that expanded to include more FCPS schools each year. In the 2019-2020 school year, all high schools in FCPS implemented this program by giving each student a Dell Latitude 3300 XCTO. Students are charged a $50 technology fee, and old laptops are given to FCPS middle and elementary schools.

1

“This is a good thing,” principal Ann Bonitatibus said. “We want new devices in our school and we want other schools without rich resources like TJ to have enough devices for their students.”

The newly implemented policy also provides opportunities for students who did not previously own a personal device.

“[Japanese] is a language that does not have regular Latin characters,” junior Chabeli Yumang said. “This is problematic because I will have to take AP exams, and we will have to do writing practice.”

Some also worry that switching between school and personal laptops will be difficult.

“I know a lot of us have our prior work and we just have our way of doing things all figured out on our own laptops,” senior Tvisha Subhashish said.

“Having to split work between two is definitely hard.”

Although an adjustment for some students, FCPS cites the division between school and personal laptops as a lesson they hope to teach through FCPSOn. Additionally, the FCPS-provided laptops have unique teaching software, allow students to print at school, and act as their testing device.

Being able to access the school’s printing network is especially attractive to some students.

“This will actually probably be a really good advantage just because I wouldn’t have to rush to the library or a commons to print something,” senior Nitin Elavarasu said.

IMPACTS ON THE CLASSROOM

“I think it’s good for [FCPS] to give us a laptop because I have my own personal laptop, but a lot of Jefferson’s computer science program plans people don’t,” sophomore Sruthi Sankararaman said. to test the new laptops in a few sections of their Foundations in Computer Science and AP While FCPSOn intends to put students on the Computer Science and Data Structures courses. same playing field, some students are concerned

3

COVER STORY || SEPT. 6, 2019 5 “Early tests last spring indicated that the new laptops will be sufficient at those levels, although using them at scale requires a sufficient maintenance system as well, which right now is the big unknown,” lab technology teacher Shane Torbert said Because the computer science department does not anticipate using the FCPSOn laptops for their post-AP computer science courses, Torbert, who primarily teaches post-AP courses, does not expect any changes in 2 his classroom operations.

“Since about 2012, students have reliably used personal laptops, where possible, in my classes,” Torbert said. “I anticipate the new laptops will operate similarly.”

Furthermore, implementation of FCPSOn will not affect the use of essential CSL services unique to Jefferson. Issues with these online

services, which are handled by Student Systems Administrators, are unrelated to issues with the FCPSOn devices, which are addressed by Jefferson’s Technology Team.

“FCPSOn has no impact on the quality or reliability nor change how students interact with CSL services such as Ion, Webmail, or Director,” Lead Student Systems Administrator Theo Ouzhinski said.

In some humanities classes, FCPSOn will lead to a greater presence of technology in the curriculum.

“FCPS has also obtained three online basal resources for instructional use in English classes: myPerspectives, an online textbook, NoRedInk, an online resource targeting grammar and writing instruction, and iLIT, a program to support students who need additional reading support,” English teacher and humanities division manager Suzette Henry said.

OPTING-IN VS. OPTING-OUT FCPS does offer students the chance to opt-out of the initiative. In order to do so, students must turn in a signed authorization form and schedule an appointment between their parents and the technology coordinator, Mr. Leo Resquin, to ensure that parents are fully aware of the benefits in using the school-issued laptops.

Though students across all grade levels expressed their frustration over the initiative, the administration, technology team and principal Dr. Ann Bonitatibus have urged students to test out the FCPSOn issued laptops before opting out of the program.

“We want all students to accept the devices at the beginning of the year. Try them for a few weeks before making a decision to opt out,” Bonitatibus said. “Think of it as going to work and it’s the device your employer has for company business.”

Despite student skepticism, teachers and administrators are hopeful that the initiative will bring new teaching opportunities.

1. The Dell Latitude 3300 XCTO in the storage room. 2. Administrators solve a technological problem. 3. Seniors Koushik Thiyagarajan and Jack Mallek work on the school-provided laptop while senior Daniel Kim works on his personal device.

“There are some exciting opportunities on the horizon, to be sure,” Henry said. “But as with any new initiative, it is important to be nuanced in terms of approach and implementation. Balance will be key.”

For more information, visit tjtoday.org

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

BizCity Bumps

W

hen it comes to developing an app in a foreign country with few guidelines and teammates who speak little of your language, seniors Parthiv Chigurupati and Pranav Wadhwa are experts.

On Aug. 17, Chigurupati and Wadhwa traveled, along with teacher representative Dr. Peter Gabor, to Busan, South Korea, for the e-ICON World Contest, where they worked to develop a competitive mobile application as part of a multicultural team.

“We had one week to build an Android app that was supposed to be an educational app that helps target the United Nations Sustainability Goals,” Wadhwa said.

In order to well-represent the United States, Chigurupati and Wadhwa were handpicked by Jefferson’s computer science staff.

“We got together in a little conference and we decided who would be the best representatives for TJ, both from a programming point of view and from an ambassadorial point of view,” Gabor said.

At the competition, Chigurupati and Wadhwa were paired with two Korean students. However, their teammates’ lack of technical experience and English fluency, as well as Wadhwa and Chigurupati’s lack of Korean fluency, immediately posed a challenge.

“Not only did they not have any coding experience, but they were also freshmen at their school, and they didn’t really have any experience with business or any of the economic base points we were using in our app,” Chigurupati said.

Faced with these challenges, Chigurpupati and Wadhwa adapted throughout the week.

“When we got there, we thought, ‘This is what they’re gonna do,’ but we kept getting new curveballs. It became harder to stick to our plan, or even create new plans, just because the solution didn’t always seem like it existed. We thought we

FEATURES || SEPT. 6, 2019 7

Anuj Khemka, Sonia Kanchan || Team Leader, Online Managing Editor

In the face of adversity, two Jefferson students powered through to develop, promote, and publish their app, BizCity, over a week long competition in South Korea

had done enough planning,” Chigurupati said.

The competition’s final product included an app called BizCity, intended to help future entrepreneurs.

“Essentially, it’s an app that helps [them] learn how to make business decisions; these decisions help them develop a business that not only benefits the company’s growth but also their employees, their environment, their resources, etc,” Wadhwa said. “It’s not possible to improve every single thing at once, so you have to make some sacrifices.”

In addition to the app itself, teams were required to make a promotional video. Chigurupati and Wadhwa thought that their teammates knew how to video edit, but this was not the case.

“Pranav and I had to sit down together alone and say, ‘alright, what do we do? How do we make them feel like their time has been spent in a worthwhile way?’”

Chigurupati said.

Along with issues surrounding language and varying skill levels, Jefferson representatives faced difficulties pertaining to the structure of the competition.

“I think the goal of the competition is pretty admirable because it’s just trying to bring people together, and I respect that,” Chigurupati said. “In America, when you go to a hackathon, everything is well defined. You know exactly what’s going to happen when and where, what the goal is, what the plans are. But when we went there, all we knew was that we had to develop an app.”

Ultimately, despite more obstacles than expected, the team not only placed third, but will also have their app published.

“It was a great experience, not only just because we got third place, but we definitely learned a lot considering neither of us were specialized Android developers,” Wadhwa said. “To come together with little help from our teammates and do that all on our own was a really great learning experience. It was really fun, just heading out to Korea for that.”

Photos Courtesy of Parthiv Chigurupati and Pranav Wadhwa 1. Busan’s surrounding landscape from thousands of miles above 2. Deep in thought, Wadhwa and Chigurupathi discuss possible pathways while developing their app 3. The venue of the e-icon competition located in Busan, South Korea from the outside 4. Beaming with the results, Wadhwa busily codes BizCity 5. The grand venue of the e-icon competition located in Busan from the inside 6. Linking arms, Wadhwa and Chigurupathi pose for a picture with fellow developers 7. Along with their Korean teammates, Wadhwa and Chigurupathi present BizCity to an audience of judges and competitors 8. An example dashboard from the BizCity app interface 9. Standing next to a competition organizer, Wadwha and Chigurupathi proudly hold up their 3rd place certificate

EMBRACING

YOUR

MISTAKES

PHOTO // Irina Lee REPORTING // Grace Mak

“

My experience at Stuyvesant was very similar to TJ, where MY PARENTS WERE TELLING ME YOU MUST DO THIS, THIS, AND THIS, and [there were] very competitive classes where everybody was super, super smart, and I always felt secretly like I was the dumbest person in the room.

[If I could give advice to my high school self], I would tell him to make sure that I was TAKING CARE OF MYSELF BEFORE TAKING CARE OF MY GRADES. Because there was no point in trying to make myself completely miserable just for a particular grade, and I was deeply unhappy at Stuyvesant. because of all that pressure.

The biggest thing I do want to bring to TJ is just an embracement of mistakes. I really want people to BE ABLE TO EMBRACE MISTAKES because there are MULTIPLE WAYS TO GET TO THE SAME EXACT GOAL. Not everybody has to aim for the same exact college, no matter what others tell you.

WHAT I’ VE LEARNED Kai Sam Ng

MATH TEACHER

”