Dear Sir:
Thank you for your quick reply. The ThinkQuest server for our project was temporarily down for the TQ judging, yesterday and today, but I am delighted to report that it is now back on.

Our school success story begins when Gino Silvestri, Principal of John F. Kennedy asked me to set up a web site for our school and get our students involved in the ThinkQuest Project. At this time, December 1996, we had 15 year old computers, no hard drives, no network, not even a mouse. We saved our work on 5 1/4" floppies.

Using these machines we partnered with Borlange Sweden to produce a web site resource which explores the mystery behind the Mona Lisa smile and provides a dozen da Vinci diversions including an interactive quiz, digital post cards and the opportunity to listen to Leonardo's original music and many curriculum links donated by teachers enrolled in my Internaet Training Workshop. This workshop which I taught, was funded by the Bronx Superintendency through a highly competitive RFP.

To date Why is the Mona Lisa Smiling? was awarded semifinalist status in ThinkQuest and GII US Awards. It is the featured as Cool School of the Month on Newsday in Education. http://www.newsday.com/nie/schools/month.htm We are also part of the Getty Museum's Digital Experience and the Exploratorium. The Lesson Plan for our project is featured part of
the Encarta Collection.

Please read the article published by the Well Connected Educator.

http://www.gsh.org/wce/archives/feld.htm

The John F. Kennedy High School Web Site has been place in the School Discovery Spotlight. Our Town Project was selected as the New York State Winner by the Computer Learning Foundation and CCCNet has presented our site with their School of the Future Award. The URL for the Kennedy web site is http://www.edu-net/~jfkhs

Seventeen teachers in our school, with a student population of nearly 5000, were able to create their own web pages and links which identify appropriate resources for their classes.

Kennedy students have presented our project at the School Tech Expo and at the Make It Work Technology Conference in New York City.

Over the summer, four new computer rooms were installed using Microsoft Windows NT Network Servers. With the addition of this state of the art technology and servers we should be able to continue our evolving technology success stories well into the millennium.

I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for considering our success story for inclusion as the Featured School in the Microsoft K-12 Newsletter for October.

Best wishes,
Steve Feld

/13681

We received your story and I've submitted it to the editor. We'll notify you if we're interested in featuring your story. Thanks for your submission!

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 1998 9:39 AM To: K-12 Feedback and Registration Alias Subject: Re: FW: Nomination for Feature School for your newsletter
K-12 Feedback and Registration Alias wrote:

Dear Steve,
Thanks for sending us your story. We may be considering it for our featured school or K-12 Connection spotlight.
We'd like you to write us back with a 250-500 word (max) story that focuses on how your school used technology to enhance student learning and how your teachers are learning to integrate that technology into their classroom.
We hope to hear back from you. Thanks for writing!
Web master
The Microsoft in K-12 Education Group http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/

Technology is being used as a multi disciplinary integration tool to enhance student learning in subject specific departments and as part of school wide academic/workplace initiatives.

Specifically, the new DNA lab represents a collaboration between John F Kennedy HS and Cold Springs Harbor. This new lab located on our sixth floor is equipped with new Dell Computers through a Windows NT network. It will be used to enhance and promote student learning of forensic, genetic and medical professions, health care and legal/ethical decision making. As such, student learning rooted in the science discipline will be directly connected through use of technology to social studies content and issues. Through the use of telecommunications within the lab, students will be able to immediately deepen their curricula understandings through a direct continuous dialogue with leading DNA experts in Cold Springs Harbor. This technology supported readily accessible link to content experts infinitely extends student class project and individual learning inquiry parameters.

As a logical expansion of John F Kennedy High School's ongoing school to work initiatives, the Business Education and Technology Department will now house the Virtual Classroom on the third floor. Students will use this lab as the business marketing and development site for a small school based business that will center around summer rentals of properties Its target market audience are the medical personnel who work in our neighborhood who are affiliated with the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, neighborhood colleges (Manhattan College and Lehman College), Wave Hill, Kingsbridge Community Center and the Montefiore Hospital.

Use of technology will provide students with immediate feedback, state of the art presentation formats for standard business templates, flyers, marketing, advertising, accounting and business plans.They will be able to develop multimedia advertising for their business.

The remaining four rooms will soon be connected through a T1 line. Once this is done all departments will have access to the Internet.

Students in Computer Graphics classes will be able to access Internet inquiry resources so they can examine perspectives on various classic art issues and questions such as: Why is the Mona Lisa Smiling?

They will be able to continue to build upon present international peer collaborators ie. Borlange Sweden and researchers in art related field ie. Lillian Schwartz and Rina de Firenze.

They will be able to use technology to enhance the audience platform and peer feedback potential for their sketchpad drawings by using the new color HP ScanJet 6100Cscanner and PowerPoint productions to present portfolios using the new Sony Video projector, in a school to work usable and broad audience accessible format. Students will also use the new equipment to study and implement web page design strategies for global economy and workplace success.

Teachers at John F. Kennedy High School are learning how to integrate Internet technology through utilizing the student designed ThinkQuest project as model and catalyst for internet training. At the suggestion of Gino Silvestri Principal, project coach Steve Feld designed an Internet Training Workshop which was funded through the Bronx Superindency RFP to conduct 20 sessions of Internet training for teachers at Kennedy High School. Among the topics covered in Internet usage were web page design, research techniques, accessibility and multimedia integration. As an outcome of the course from the various subject content areas, --language arts guidance, health, business education, social studies and mathematics teachers developed culturally rich, discipline appropriate web pages of resource links which were contributed to the Mona Lisa project. The teachers in turn will tap these resources for their classroom integration.

Technology is enhancing teaching and learning opportunities for students and staff as this leading inner city public high school prepares its staff and student community for the challenges of the millennium.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Homepage