DIGITAL LIFE

We believe it is a moral imperative to teach our students how to navigate the tricky path of adolescence without digital blemish. We want them to exhibit digital ethics and understand how to curate their knowledge, skills and talents.

Most of all, we want our students to create a positive digital footprint and develop a strong network that they will need in a world where the average graduate today will hold at least eight to ten different jobs, several of which they will need to create themselves. 

A unique part of our STEAM curriculum is our Digital Life strand. Tony Wagner, bestselling author and Harvard professor, tells us that our students will need to develop seven skills in order to succeed in this globally connected environment: 

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
• Agility and adaptability
• Initiative and entrepreneurship
• Effective oral and written communication
• Accessing and analyzing information
• Curiosity and imagination

Personal Branding and Digital Communication

We require our high school students to take Personal Branding and Digital Communication, which is a course that embeds 21st century tools aimed at developing their digital communication skills to ensure that they develop a strong positive digital footprint, as well as hone their personal brand. It is essential to develop a strong sense of one’s strengths and weaknesses and understand how to market those strengths to succeed.

Google Apps

NBPS is a Google Apps School which is a key factor to our successful 1:1 program in grades PK-12. Our Lower School students use Google Apps on their iPads. These tools support the high levels of collaboration that are required in today’s classroom to prepare students with the communication and collaboration skills they’re going to need 24/7.

Our students become adept at creating documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and videos that showcase their learning. Students need to learn how to communicate properly in this globally digital world and how to curate their knowledge, skills and talents in order to create a positive digital footprint.

ePortfolios

Our students begin to curate their knowledge digitally beginning in the Lower School through in ePortfolios. These ePortfolios serve as a repository of past and current learning, student reflections as well as where students house their academic and personal goals and college planning. Whereas the family refrigerator used to serve as the place where students shared their work, our students share their work with the world.