Technology at Kennedy High School

John F. Kennedy High School is located in the Southwestern part of the Bronx, right on the border of Manhattan. Within the past two years, it has seen tremendous growth in the way it makes use of technology as an education tool. To a very large degree, the man behind that growth is Ali Shama. His vision has been driving many of the wonderful things happening at Kennedy recently.

In 2006, Ali brought me in to help implement and maintain the network services he needed in order to achieve his vision. Together, we installed four Apple labs consisting of around 34 iMacs each and an Xserve to handle default settings for those workstations. We then tied them into our existing Windows domain, allowing students access to the same network files and folders they would have when logging into a Windows workstation. We also set up at least 4 PC labs with 34 stations each and configured several network based applications, such as Rosetta Stone, Plato and Microsoft Student for use in those labs.

The impact this work has had on the school has been tremendous.  Students are learning to create, with very professional tools and in a very professional setting, digital video, audio and print. There more details about this in a great write-up Ali received in the New York Daily News.

What has been done at Kennedy, especially in connection with Apple hardware and services, is an example of what LightCube Solutions is offering.  In fact, I believe the work at Kennedy will serve as a springboard for future LightCube work. Thank you, Ali, for the great privilege I have had in working with you.