Thornton Academy Postscripts Alumni Magazine Winter 2008 | Page 7

www.thorntonacademy.org

Students Perform “Street Scene”
by Elmer Rice
Fall play was Pulitzer Prize winner in 1929
The TA Players presented the fall production “Street
Scene” in Harry P. Garland II Auditorium in late November
and December. It was the largest fall production in years,
with more than 50 students in the cast and crew.
“Street Scene” was an outstanding Broadway success
and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1929. A panorama of the
comedy and tragedy of the daily life of tenement dwellers,
it is played to the accompaniment of rumbling elevated
trains and the tooting of whistles. Though this remarkable
play is primarily a slice of life in a poor neighborhood, it is
held together by a strikingly dramatic plot. The production
brought out big audiences of enthusiastic parents, students
and community members.

Photo by Jennifer Hass

Alexis Simonette ‘09, left, and Mike Goulet ‘08, right, run through
their lines for “Street Scene” at Thornton Academy.

TATV Technology Expands Local Programming
24/7 broadcasting
is now possible with
upgrades to the TA
television studio
Thornton Academy students interested in television
broadcasting are developing
additional programming for the
local government/educational
channel, thanks to a fall decision
from the Saco City Council that
provided new funds for Thornton’s student-run television sta-

tion.
Four TATV members—Fred
Connelly ‘08, Justin Chenette
‘09, Corey Huot ’08 and Tammi
Spulick ‘09—are charged with
taping events like council meetings, school board meetings and
Thornton sporting events to air
locally on Channel 3.
About $25,000—funds that
originated as franchise fees—
have been used to invest in new
technology for TATV. The city
will benefit as Saco residents
will enjoy a greater variety of
locally relevant television shows,

filmed and produced by Thornton students. Students will
benefit as they use cutting-edge,
professional-grade technology.
In the past, two hours of
TATV programming were looped
to run continuously from a DVD
through the entire week on the
cable channel.
A new computer-based
Leightronix Nexus broadcasting
system can increase the number
of shows aired each week. It can
air both pre-recorded programs
and live events and will allow
students to set a program sched-

ule that can be viewed online.
There is also greater flexibility
airing public announcements
using the Nexus system, and the
system has HDTV capabilities.
In April 2007, Thornton
Academy students Sean Campbell ’07 and Luke Nielson ’08,
along with Thornton Academy
Trustee Bill Kany ‘77, approached the Saco City Council
about using a portion of the
Time Warner Cable fees to boost
TATV’s broadcasting abilities—
and improve local public access
channel programming.

Web-Based Courses are Thriving at Thornton
Learning with a laptop and an iPod—and getting college experience to boot
Plenty of students on campus
can use an iPod to listen to the
latest hit from Alicia Keys, but at
TA they can also use the devices
to watch a lecture by “Night”
author Elie Wiesel.
Thornton Academy is
offering new online classes
that go beyond the bricks-andmortar approach to teaching and
integrate learning on the web
with the popular portable media
player.
TA is unique in offering
among the first—perhaps the
first—online classes to high
school students in Maine.
As Technology Integration
Specialist Chris Indorf explains,
it’s important to make use of
electronic tools like podcasts
that students are already
familiar with to get them excited
to learn. Indorf worked with
Information Technology Director
Ben Nasse ‘93 to get the online
classes started.
“This is our students’ world.
I think that much is obvious,”
Indorf says. “Technology is a
natural channel through which
we can communicate, research
and create.”
Indorf—who’s also a history
teacher—taught the elective class

Photo by Jennifer Hass

Keegan Moody ‘08, pictured using an iPod, is among the students who
took a online class at TA in the fall

.

“Choices, Morality and War”
online last fall and continues to
teach it this spring with a new
group of Thornton students.
The World War II course
has three central themes: the
Holocaust, the internment of
Japanese Americans and the
decision to drop atomic bombs
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Seniors enrolled in the class
primarily engage with course

material through TAOnline,
Thornton’s content management
system, and through their iPods.
In-class meetings take place only
once every three weeks.
The primary benefit to
students is access to course
information 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. Each individual
can work at his or her own pace,
and it’s good preparation for life
after graduation. Increasingly

POSTSCRIPTS * WINTER 2008

college classes are offered
through the web. It’s also critical
for young people to be adept
at using technology in general,
whether they attend college or
not.
Survey feedback indicates
that students are responding
well to Thornton’s teaching
experiment. They enjoy the
freedom provided to explore
learning material on their own
and appreciate the experience
gained by taking an online
course.
“It’s really different from
anything that we’ve ever taken
before,” says Lauren Roedner
’08.
This spring, Indorf has
opened his classroom doors to
seven students from Old Orchard
Beach and Biddeford high school
students. His goal is to share
online teaching materials and
eventually make a variety of webbased collaborations possible.
Also this term, science
teacher Matt Amoroso is
conducting a philosophy class
online. Given the success of the
web-based learning experience
so far at TA, there is optimism
about moving forward with this
online initiative.