Plain old book reports and PowerPoint presentations are a thing of the past at Ridgefield Academy.
Just this year, the private school unveiled a 5,800-square-foot, state-of-the-art digital media lab, complete with a wide range of hardware and software that is already transforming the way students work and learn, said Joseph Perry, head of the Middle and Upper schools at Ridgefield Academy.
“We didn”™t want to just build a computer room,” Perry said, the goal all along has been to “bridge all of the disciplines.”
The new wing ”“ appropriately called The Bridge ”“ was built in well under a year from what had previously been storage space and extra classrooms. Now in their place are a research library, a computer room outfitted with the full Adobe suite of graphics software, and a video recording room, complete with a green screen.
The $1.1 million facility was designed by KG&D Architects P.C., in Mount Kisco, N.Y., with the Ridgefield Academy staff also drawing heavily on the knowledge and assistance of instructors from the Jacob Burns Film Center and Media Arts Lab in Pleasantville, N.Y., when mapping out a curriculum for the students.
While Ridgefield Academy does not want to be known solely as a technology school, Perry said that it was important for the school to stay on the cutting edge, both as a means of keeping students engaged and to assist the school”™s promotion efforts.
“We”™re really just evolving who we are and moving forward ”¦ We”™re able to offer things that the public schools can”™t,” Perry said. For a private school to succeed in what is a very competitive location, “There needs to be something special.”
The Bridge has allowed teachers to incorporate a new element to traditional subjects such as history and English.
In one case, after a recent school trip to Boston, students were assigned to create a digitally animated video using Adobe Flash software rather than to write a report on the trip. Similarly, after reading Homer”™s “Odyssey,” the fifth-grade English classes were assigned to make a computer animation to go along with their class work.
“We made it more hands-on and brought it more to life,” Perry said. “Instead of doing a diorama or some poster board project, we”™re now bringing it to the next level.”
At Jacob Burns, Emily Keating, the center”™s director of education, was equally excited to be a part of the project. While Burns”™ instructors routinely work with school districts in the area, their work is often limited to single topics and individual classes, rather than the large-scale project represented by Ridgefield Academy”™s Bridge.
“To us it was a sort of utopic scenario and represented a lot of possibilities that we wish more schools had,” Keating said. “It was the first time we were approached as consultants.”
Both Keating and Perry said that Burns would continue to be involved with the school”™s instructors and that the film center”™s instructors visit periodically to give additional seminars.
