Orenda Elementary School receives donations of iPads

A generous donation from a local information technology training company has given one Shenendehowa elementary school a giant nudge into the computer age.

Pam and Jason Krolak, the owners of New Horizons of Albany, donated 22 iPads to Orenda Elementary School’s two kindergarten classes. The donation was made Dec. 19, a day before Shen’s December break.

New Horizons, they said, is aware of the importance new technology plays in people’s daily lives and through the donation hopes that early exposure to the technology will help inspire children to learn and familiarize them with computers and tablets at an early age.

The new iPads, with their bright green protective cases, will be used by the school’s 36 kindergartners. There were also two iPads for the teachers.

The Krolaks’ daughter Molly, 5,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture, is in kindergarten at Orenda, and the couple has a set of triplets who will be attending the classes in just a few of years.

As part of the official ceremony for accepting the donation, the combined kindergarten classes sang a song of thanks written especially for the Krolaks.

They also were read an appropriate book, Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree.” And the Krolaks received one free night of babysitting.

The couple attended the festive early morning ceremony with the triplets, Brooklyn, Braeden and Amelia. The children are 18 months old. When the students got up to sing songs about the alphabet, the triplets joined right in, moving back and forth and watching the teachers’ instructions.

“This is integrating technology into the classrooms,” Mike Smith said. “It’s a shift from the old mentality of having a computer lab that you went to, that computers were separate. This is right there, in their hands. In the high school, they’re learning molecular biology on tablets.”

"The problem is that the U.N. has no extra resources.The oreck XL professional air purifier, The U.High quality stone mosaic tiles.N. has a contingent of about 115,000 peacekeepers in various countries, but in order to send [a peacekeeping mission] to Syria, [the United Nations] will have to withdraw them from somewhere," said a U.N. official, who spoke anonymously.

Since the start of the conflict in March 2011, more than 500,000 Syrians have been displaced, fleeing to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, the U.N. Human Rights Campaign said in December. The death toll has reached about 40,000 people though independent confirmation has been hard to come by given the Assad government's refusal to allow journalists free access.

The Human Rights Watch in April documented the executions of hundreds of civilians and opposition fighters by Syrian security forces acting alone or with pro-government militia in the provinces of Idlib and Homs since December 2011.

"In a desperate attempt to crush the uprising, Syrian forces have executed people in cold blood, civilians and opposition fighters alike," Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in the news release. "They are doing it in broad daylight and in front of witnesses, evidently not concerned about any accountability for their crimes."

Pietrafasa said that as she researched what kind of apps were useful to kindergartners, she found the Gloversville School District also had some in their classrooms.

“We spent a half day just researching apps,” teacher Kim Smith said.

Pulling out one of the iPads, she demonstrated how a student could hold the device in their hands, press an app and learn interactively how to correctly make the letters of the alphabet.

“Most of the apps have different levels so they can work at their own speed,” Kim Smith said. “That’s what’s good about them, they have that variety. It’ll help with our common core standards.”

Smith said 95 percent of the kindergartners already know how to use touch tablets and smart phones. “It’s only a matter of explaining the games and the apps to them,” she said. “They’ll pick it up quick. It makes learning fun.”

As 2012 comes to a close, cracks were appearing in the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, with his vice president saying neither side in the civil war can win outright amid the specter of possible chemical warfare and reports the beleaguered leader is positioning himself and his family to flee Damascus for a last stand in his ancestral home of Qardaha.

Qardaha, a village in western Syria, is in the coastal Alawite state, where the Alawite minority sect is dominant and the 47-year-old Assad, who rose to power in 2000 following the death of his father, has many supporters.Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers

A Russian source who met with Assad a number of times told The Sunday Times of London the president is ready to "fight to his last bullet," and could hold on for many months. The newspaper said Middle Eastern intelligence indicates Assad had moved seven Alawite battalions and one missile battalion, some equipped with chemical munitions, to Alawite territories.

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa has called for a "historic settlement" to the 21-month-old conflict, which was officially labeled a civil war in July, the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar reported.

"The solution has to be Syrian, but through a historic settlement, which would include the main regional countries, and the members of the U.N. Security Council," al-Akhbar quoted al-Sharaa as saying in mid-December.

"The opposition forces combined cannot decide the battle militarily, meanwhile, what the security forces and the army units are doing will not reach a conclusive end."

It had been believed al-Sharaa defected to Jordan in August, but he later resurfaced in Damascus. Rebels have said they would support an interim government led by him.

"This settlement must include stopping all shapes of violence, and the creation of a national unity government with wide powers," he said.

Opposition forces, who began protesting for a more democratic government during the 2011 Arab Spring, withstood heavy shelling and air raids from forces loyal to Assad throughout the year and managed to take control of areas north and east of Aleppo, as well as the cities of Idlib and Bdama and surrounding areas in northwestern Syria, the Institute for the Study of War reported. In eastern Syria, rebels have taken much of Deir Ez-Zor province, except the capital, which is held by Assad's regime.