Campus

Technology

Ring Mountain regards the use of technology as an integral part of a child’s education, and it is incorporated into our curriculum wherever appropriate. Computers and technology have become ubiquitous in our culture over the past 30 years. Children are used to computers being a nearly constant part of their everyday lives. One of our goals at Ring Mountain is that use of the computer as a tool in academics and the arts should be taken equally for granted.

That being said, we do not believe in the investment of technology simply for technology’s sake. Each new acquisition is guided by a specific curricular use that has been mapped out in advance. Visiting our campus, you will find computers in use in our science classrooms to graph and present data, or to project images of dissection specimens and microscope slides. In math classrooms you might discover our students graphing equations using The Geometer’s Sketchpad, or presenting their solutions to a particularly difficult problem using a projector and drawing pad. In art classes our students begin using Photoshop as tool in both digital photography and graphic arts. Or, you might find our drama students editing video from their latest scenes. And of course the computer, along with the internet, has become an invaluable tool for research and word processing in History and English classes.

Our students begin using computers as early as kindergarten, where among other things, the “play” of learning the keyboard to navigate and advance through various activities facilitates their learning to both read and write. In first and second grade, students begin exploring the computer as a research tool through carefully guided activities, and as students reach middle school, our program teaches an easy familiarity with technology, focused expertise in its use, and trains students to feel comfortable seeking out further information when problems arise or the ambitions of a given project exceed their current knowledge.

Computer Safety

The computer has become a tool in our society for research, entertainment, and communication, among many other things. The ubiquity of computer use, especially among the current generation of students, frequently blurs the boundaries between these different functions. It is easy to mistakenly allow the security one feels at home or at school where the computer is located, to translate into a feeling of safety in the world-wide-web when it becomes a tool for communication. We hope to teach responsible and safe use of technology in and out of school in part by encouraging our students to recognize the boundaries between these various functions of the computer.

Computer use at Ring Mountain is primarily governed by an honor code which our students re-affirm at the start of each year. However, we also recognize a responsibility as a K-8 institution to safeguard our students against accidental missteps in the realm of the world-wide-web. Our entire network operates behind the school’s firewall, which provides anti-virus protection, monitors all incoming and outgoing traffic to the web, and enforces a content-filtering system which allows us to limit or prohibit access to non-school related material. While we recognize that school is not the only place where our students have access to technology, we feel it is part of our students' education in the use of technology to learn the safe practices that should govern its use. The presence of a firewall permits us to take the pulse of our student body from time to time, and to gauge student interest in the rise and fall of various internet fads. As popular or dubious websites begin being frequently blocked by our filter, we can guide our students around potential dangers or alert our parent community when interest in questionable resources on the web appears to be rising among our students.