It is with this in mind that I will attempt to pick up where Mrs. Schweitzer left off in the computer lab at St. Barnabas.  I fully intend to continue to move the students forward in their quest for computer information and knowledge.  This web site is an on-going legacy of St. Barnabas and,although I will probably make a few changes over time, the basic layout of the site should remain the same.  I will strive to keep up with the advances and updated products and software for the students to have and use.  Mrs. Thompson and the staff and parents at St. Barnabas are a wonderful group of supporters.

There is so much that I agree with in Mrs Schweitzer's original letter and it is so well-worded that there is little I would change.  With that said, I am keeping the letter intact below:
 

(From Debbie Schweitzer, October 1998):
The school has made some major changes in the last few years. One of those changes is the addition of the Internet. We have used it in the past in a limited way, but now we, like many other schools, must guide our children to learn how to use this massive telecommunication tool. Now more than ever we must encourage our children to use their ethical and moral principles taught in Catholic Schools to evaluate the information they find. We should encourage them to become active Christian learners.

The funny part of this is when the school first added its Internet connection, guess who taught me how to use it -- the students. Many of them had already been on the web and they talked about surfing the web, emailing friends, and chatting on-line. I will admit I was lost and set out trying to find out as much information about the web as I could. It was overwhelming. In the last few months, I have talked to many parents. They, like me, have many questions concerning the web. "Is it safe?" "Do you know how I can protect my child?" "Can you explain to me how it works?" "Do you know anything about email?" "What do you know about chat rooms?"

In the next few months as a service to you, I am going to try to share many of the things I have learned about the Internet. Topics will cover things like Parent Do's and the Don'ts of the Internet, General Internet Terms, Email, The WWW, Chat Rooms, Safe Sites and Filtering Programs, and History of the Internet. If you have any particular interest about the net I have not listed, please ask me. I will be glad to share what I know or try to learn more about it for you.

There are some beautiful, educational sites on the web. If you get a few moments, please visit our web site. We have set up web pages of safe sites. The children in this school are only allowed to use these sites when they are on the Internet.

There are even sites for parents and on-line publications for your convenience. Some of the sites we are using at the moment are the following:

Nine Planets on the Science site

The Titanic on the Social Studies site

The Periodic Table on the Science site

The Rules about Sports on the PE site

Our site is http://www.thepoint.net/~stbar.

Debbie Schweitzer