Throwback Thursday - Tom Dacchord at BB&N

Close to ten years ago, Tom Dacchord led a faculty meeting thinking about the impact of technology on teaching and learning. Thanks to the wonders of video-tape conversion technology and abundant online storage this video is for the first time ever available for public viewing...

Tom Dacchord at BB&N Faculty Meeting 2007 from BB&N School on Vimeo.

"Apples Up" Music Video by MS English Teacher Ethan Rossiter

When Middle School English teacher Ethan Rossiter heard the phrase, "Apples Up," at a faculty meeting earlier this year,  he was inspired. Mr Rossiter, who is also a children's music practitioner, began marinating the concept for musical treatment. Saying "Apples Up" is a signal used by teachers to re-focus students' attention during lessons when laptops are in use. When students close the lids of their MacBooks, the Apple logo on the lid is pointed up towards the sky. (The same logic applies to phones; putting the phone down on the table with the Apple logo up means that the screen is down, so it is no longer in use.) "I thought it was a super-catchy phrase," Rossiter says. "That's when the idea for a song started."

"I had never made a music video before, and it was definitely envisioned as just a fun, creative project," Rossiter says. "But I guess my hope is that schools and families could use the song and video as an entry point into a discussion about technology."

After an afternoon of filming and many hours of editing, the final result was a fun, extremely catchy, and thought-provoking pastiche about the intersection of technology and student life.

Although Rossiter wrote and performed most of the music, he leaned on the various talents of BB&N students to bring the video to fruition, including drummer Callie Heppner '27, the daughter of Ethan's MS colleague, Christa Crewdson.

"Aaron Kaufer '17 did all the shooting and editing, and the success of the video was really because of his editing," Rossiter says. "Charlie Heveran '17 and Thomas Mandile '17 were also very involved in the acting—they were in every shoot. And two eighth graders, Katie Gould and Jessie Scheer, choreographed the dance."

Laptops at Upper School

Upper School students using laptops in class...


BB&N's Upper School's approach to computer ownership is currently an optional "Bring Your Own Device" model; in other words, students may bring any type of computer or tablet to school and get on our WiFi. In this classroom it appears that most students use Mac laptops.

In September of 2016 BB&N's Middle School adopted a requirement for 7th grade students to own Mac laptops. As this ownership requirement reaches Upper School we expect to continue allowing any type of computer OS in Upper School (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.), so long as it can accomplish a baseline of capabilities to be defined by the Upper School faculty (e.g. run Microsoft Office, Google Apps, and a basic video editing program.)