FHUHS Administration

Drama News: The Break-a-Leg Society recently participated in the Regional One-Act Festival. FHU won an award for “Excellence in Unified Technical Design/ Presentation.” The following students received awards as well: Kelsey Burhans, Sydni Shaddock and Mindy Jurgen for Excellence in Acting; Patrick Infurna, David Atkins and Jeff Bruce for Original Music Composition. Congratulations to all for your creative endeavors.

Technology News: Teachers continue to be busy integrating technology to engage students and enhance learning. This week I would like to highlight a few teachers that are bringing some new technologies into their classroom. Ben Worthing, of the Science Department, is building his teacher website in Google Sites with links to every class he teaches. He will have it full of rich materials for students. The site looks great. Kathy Gallagher, Math Department, created a video of herself explaining how to do an algebra problem so that if she is out, the substitute can still give the lesson. She is also having students create original works like videos or PowerPoint’s to demonstrate higher level math concepts that teach the concept to others. Hurley Cavacas, Math Department, has created an authentic project for his students in Statistics. They will be using Google Forms to create a survey that will be sent to every high school in the state to find any correlations between how high schools teach math, class schedules and NECAP scores in order to make suggestions for improvement. This is a great example of authentic learning. Mr. Cavacas will also be having his Business Mathematics class work on an investment simulation using a Web 2.0 tool to learn about the stock market. Thank you to all teachers who strive to bring technology to our students.

Fair Haven Students Enter Doodle 4 Google Contest! Doodle 4 Google is a competition that encourages US students to use their creativity to produce their own Google logo for use on the Google site. The contest is open to both elementary and high school students in grades K-12 in all 50 US states. The judging criteria are the following: artistic merit, creativity, theme communication, appropriateness of the supporting statement and whether the submissions adhered to the rules. This year’s supporting statement that the students had to inspire them to create their Google logo is: “If I could do anything I would…” They had a maximum of 50 words to describe in writing their Google artwork and how it fits the prompting statement. Ms. Potvin and Ms. Ransom both have students who entered the contest. There are all kinds of prizes including netbooks, $15,000 scholarships, a trip to the Google New York Office, $25,000 grants or the school to establish/improve a computer lab and more! We have some really talented artists and wish them luck in this competition.

Have a great week!

Brett C. Blanchard, Fair Haven Union High School Principal