Welcome to OPEN.
OPEN is the news and discussion blog of Avenues: The World School. Read, view and engage with us. Please visit avenues.org for more information about the school.
School 2.0
EXPLORE our educational philosophy and curriculum. Engage with us as we discuss the future of education.
People
MEET the people of Avenues—faculty, administrators, staff and parents.
Campus
VISIT the campus and learn about the design and construction of our Chelsea school and its neighborhood. Watch videos as construction progresses.
Meet Quam Sodji
Quam Sodji joined Avenues in June 2012 to help with the installation of the technology used throughout the school. A systems engineer, he oversees help desk support, mobile repairs and vendor relations. He is also responsible for the back-end hardware and software used for Avenues’ databases, as well as the wireless network and phones. More...
CATEGORY: People
Tags: Faculty, Teacher Bio, Technology
Digital Literacy at Avenues
The effective use of technology is an important part of an Avenues education, making digital literacy a key skill for both students and faculty. Many different people contribute to the technological environment of the school, providing faculty and staff with both technology and training. In the first video of this series examining digital literacy at Avenues, we look at the Avenues library. The library has been designed to provide print and digital materials at an age-appropriate level to all students, with a 70% digital collection and a 30% print collection distributed throughout the school. The task of assembling the right information and making sure students know how to use it is the responsibility of Alia Methven, director of library services. More...
CATEGORY: School 2.0
Tags: Library, Technology, Video
Dispatches from China
Editor’s note: In March 2013, a group of Avenues Middle School students, led by faculty members Mike Levy, Yongling Lu and Zahara Wignot, participated in our first trip to China, visiting Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai. Mike sent back periodic updates on the group’s activities. Here are some of the highlights of that trip, excerpted from Mike’s emails. More...
CATEGORY: School 2.0
Tags: Mandarin Chinese
Avenues at the Augmented World Expo
On Wednesday, June 5, Katy Garnier, director of the iLab at Avenues, is joining Jay Van Buren of interactive agency Early-Adopter to give a joint presentation on augmented reality in education, specifically the work being done at Avenues as highlighted in this video. The talk, given at the Augmented World Expo, the largest AR conference in the world, will cover the general principles of what makes augmented reality interesting in education, both as a tool for educators and as something students can learn and create in their own right. More...
CATEGORY: School 2.0
Tags: Augmented Reality, Technology
Avenues for Educators on YouTube
Over the next several weeks, we will both be adding new video content to our YouTube channel and creating new playlists to make it easier to find items that may interest you. The first of these playlists is up on YouTube today and offers highlights of some of our video series that are potentially of interest to educators and to the education community. Check back for more playlists that create new connections between our own content and high quality content from outside Avenues. More...
CATEGORY: School 2.0
Tags: Video