By Mitchell Alexander, Northside High School

Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which prepare high school students across the nation for college-level work, will face a challenge in our area in the upcoming school year.

Virginia Advanced Study Strategies (VASS), is a non-profit group that has provided support and financial compensation to Virginia students enrolled in AP classes since its inception in 2007. Roanoke County started receiving benefits in 2010.

However, the grant Roanoke County Public Schools has through the program will expire next year.

The VASS program places focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Traditionally, teachers of supported classes would receive money based on how well their students performed, and also training during the summer.

In addition, students would receive a 100 dollar check for each exam passed. VASS would provide weekend study sessions with a lunch for students along with equipment for labs, and pay half the cost of each AP test (89 dollars).

Now, students earn only 50 dollars per exam, the VASS sessions have been shortened to half-days and no lunch is provided.

Next year, when the grant has completely expired, there will be no monetary rewards and no remedial sessions.

However, the grant is less necessary now that the county’s AP program has, according to the Collegeboard, been established as a viable and successful initiative.

Roanoke County Public Schools has been included in the Collegeboard’s AP honor roll for the past 3 years by increasing access to AP programs while simultaneously increasing the percentage of students that perform well on the AP exam.

“I think that the VASS grant losing funds will really hurt scores and students will lose an incentive to do well,” said William Byrd Senior Adam Cline, who has taken multiple AP classes. “However, a poorly financed program with limited funds won’t do much good either.”

By Paras Patel, Hidden Valley High School

School policies that provide each student with a personal laptop or iPad to use during and after school means some students often spend more time playing games on the Internet or browsing sites such as Facebook and Reddit.

Despite administrators’ efforts to implement policy that would make actions such as gaming and renegade Internet usage illegal upon school grounds, the use of laptops for such purposes has remained steady since laptops were introduced to Roanoke County 10 years ago.

At the core of these problems is the obstruction of a school’s bandwidth, or the amount of data that can be downloaded or uploaded through a connection at one time.

“If you have people that have legitimate academic pursuits, … and you have all these other people using up the bandwidth for non-academic pursuits, they are taking away the bandwidth for other people,” said Andrew Clapper, the instructional technology resource teacher at Hidden Valley High School. “The problem isn’t generally with one user. … You can get around one user pulling stuff down, the issue is when you have 300 [students] using Spotify.”

With students occupying data streams with Spotify, YouTube or other content streaming services, it becomes more difficult for teachers to fulfill certain duties, such as administering tests or giving multimedia presentations.

At Hidden Valley, many tests are now administered through the online service of Blackboard, which also can cause frustration for students waiting for tests to load.

By Jessica Wiegandt, Lord Botetourt High School

Small sounds of dings and rings are audible from smart phones and tablets may be due to a game called Ruzzle.

Ruzzle is a new application available for handheld devices that allows users to connect with their contacts, Facebook friends or random opponents to play the word game.

Ruzzle was created by MAG Interactive in March of 2012. The game seems to have since skyrocketed into popularity, and I’ve noticed  students at Lord Botetourt High School have become avid players.

The app consists of a board of letters, each contained within a small box. The player drags their finger around the screen to create words out of the letters. It’s like a jumbled up version of Boggle.

The player is on a two-minute time limit to get as many points as possible to beat the opposing player. (The longer the words, the better, and some letters can even earn a player extra points.)

The app is a game for iPhone and Android owners who are players seeking a new word game to play.

By Neale Butler, North Cross School

Anyone could name that one cell phone app they are constantly playing with and cannot seem to quit.

The latest iPhone and iPad app that seems to be captivating local teenagers’ attention is “What’s the Word”.

This game is a brain teaser. Four pictures are shown on the screen at a time, and there are a series of scrambled letters below.

The goal is to figure out what each of the photos have in common, and pick out the correct letters to unscramble the commonality.

For example: Photos of a stack of cards, cruise ship, game of poker, and the deck of a ship show up on the cell phone screen. The correct answer to this particular puzzle is “deck.”

With each puzzle solved, the player is rewarded two coins. Those will come into play later.

The puzzles become more challenging as the player advances in the game, and in some cases, they seem completely impossible.

But, here are some ways to get past this issue.

Remember those coins I mentioned earlier? These coins, which add up over time, can be used to buy a hint.

As a last resort, the player can always search Google for the phrase, “What’s the Word answers.” Photos will appear, along with the answers to each puzzle.

It’s important to know that this game can become very addicting. But at the same time, it encourages the player to use their brain, which is always a good thing.

Dubstep bands are becoming more common as the style of music grows in popularity. Illustration by Claire Gross, Lord Botetourt High School

By Jessica Wiegandt, Lord Botetourt High School

Lord Botetourt junior Ben Sander, and senior Tyler Beger, have something in common. They create a type of music called Dubstep.

The genre of music is unique and growing in popularity. Many singers now have a Dubstep vibe to their music, Sander said.

The teens work both individually and as a team to create their music.

“It’s electronic,” Sander said. “You nod your head to it. It’s very bass heavy.”

Beger described Dubstep as “lazy music,” and he agreed with Sander’s explanation. Beger has been making Dubstep since he first heard a group called Skream in ninth-grade.

“When I heard them, I thought, ‘Hey, that’s cool,’ and started digging through the genre,” Beger said. “It’s a really big culture [of music] in England and lots of people there are really into it.”

Sander learned about the genre of music through Beger about two years ago; he was into making the music, and thought he could make it too.

“Beger took it on himself… and I followed,” Sander said. “We used to work together in the making process, but now our styles are so different it’s difficult.”

All that’s needed to make dubstep beats is a computer, a program for creating the music and speakers. Beger and Sander use the program FL Studio.

“Usually, I just open up the program and mess with some different instruments, and that’s how I get going,” Sander said.

Beger has a different method.

“Sometimes, I’ll be in school and hear the beat in my head and I’ll write it down,” he said. “The ideas stem off each other and before you know it, you have a song.”

Sander said that they don’t think the quality of their music is high enough to sell, but they wouldn’t be opposed to selling it if somebody offered to pay. Instead, Sander and Beger release their music online.

“I’m really picky with what I put online,” Beger said. “I have about 60 finished unreleased songs, and I’ve released about ten so far,” Beger said.

He doesn’t want to release music that he feels isn’t as good as it can be.

Sander said he puts all of his finished music online until he grows tired of it. Then, he’ll take that song down and put another in its place.

Dubstep is in the electronic genre of music. It is a worldwide genre, but it’s not as popular here as it is in other areas of the world. Dubstep originated in England in 2002 and was featured on BBC radio soon after, creating the popular rise in the surrounding world, according to www.udubstep.com.

Nevertheless, Sander said that it’s basically all he listens to; especially after creating beats for the last two years.

“It’s probably the hobby that’s stayed with me the longest,” Sander said. “You never really run out of ideas for music. And when you think you have, you’re re-inspired.”

Illustration by Claire Gross, Lord Botetourt High School

By Alex Moore, Lord Botetourt High School

The year is 2013. The internet is flooded with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and they are available to anyone with the click of the mouse, or button on a phone.

Social networking is a simple way to communicate and find out about the lives of friends and family members. But minor mistakes can be extremely dangerous.

Read more »

By Drew Luther, Hidden Valley High School

In this day and age, it seems like everyone is using social media.

Teens especially, it seems, are particularly fond of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Social media is simple. All that’s needed is a phone or computer with internet access. A person can be just about anywhere and be able to catch up with their family halfway across the world, or plan a party with friends.

One thing that people use social media for is to play games with each other. Facebook has lots of games which are all integrated into the social experience.

Social media can also be beneficial to the user. It allows the user to market themselves or their work, and gain inspiration from seeing the work of others.

PLUG INTO is a bi-weekly column that touches on the latest trends with teens in the Valley.

By Jessica Ross, Lord Botetourt High School

If you try to look good on Snapchat, you aren’t doing it right. It’s all about acting silly and making your friends laugh.

Snapchat is an application for iPhones and Androids. The app allows the user to send pictures and videos to their friends and family members.

But there’s a catch. The user controls how long the photo or video will stay on the screen; it can be anywhere from one second to 10. The image shows on the recipient’s screen for the designated time, then disappears. Or, the video plays and then deletes. Another feature allows you to use your finger to draw on the photo or add text to it before sending. Snapchat even lets you know if someone has taken a screenshot of your ‘snap’.

The purpose of the app is to send funny pictures back and forth to make each other laugh.

Facebook has recently come out with their own version of the app. It’s called “Poke,” but it’s different than the original Facebook Poke feature.

Poke is only available on iOS devices at the moment.

PLUG INTO is a bi-weekly column that touches on the latest trends with teens in the Valley.

Old laptops are being replaced with newer, lighter laptops at Roanoke County public schools. Illustration by Alexis Holland, William Byrd High School

By Mitchell Alexander and Neale Butler

Ten years ago, a teacher would have scoffed at the idea of each student in their classroom having a personal, take-home laptop computer.

But for the past decade, high school students have been using laptops both in and out of the classroom.

Most recently though, there has been a transition to MacBooks from the traditional Dell laptops that Roanoke County has employed since the start of the 1:1 laptop initiative.

Apple recently began offering 13” stripped-down MacBook airs to educators for $999 each, or a 5-pack for $4,995, according to macrumors.com.

Dr. Ken Nicely, director of secondary instruction/technology for Roanoke County Public Schools, said the price that was paid for the new MacBook airs is comparable to the price the County paid for the Dells.

“I like the [Mac] operating system because everything is easy to find,” said Northside Freshman Yelena Topalovic, who uses her Apple laptop for essay-writing.

This transition only applies to freshman and teachers. Sophomores and juniors received new Dell laptops to use, and seniors are stuck with the old Dells.

“I honestly don’t care,” said Northside Senior Taylor Medley. “My computer is a dinosaur, but it has never crashed on me and I can live without the fear of dropping it.”

Plus, the benefits of being a senior outweigh the technological gap, Medley said.

“I’ll be in college next year. The freshmen will still be in high school.”

Technology at North Cross School has also seen a change this year.

This is the first year North Cross School students are using iPads, instead of the formerly used Netbooks.

Sophomore Meg Evett said the Netbooks worked well for simple tasks, like taking notes in class. But she likes the iPads much better.

“The iPads are great because they have a lot of features that are good for taking notes, and they provide the school with faster and better technology for learning,” Evett said.

For subjects other than math and foreign languages, textbooks are stored on each students’ iPad. This reduces the weight of backpacks since it is not necessary for students to lug their textbooks to class.

Students have the option to either buy their own iPad or to rent it from the school on a year-to-year lease.

Regardless of ownership status, all students are encouraged to take their iPads home after school for homework use.

North Cross administrators hope that the iPad program will bring better technology-based learning into the classroom, and will benefit all students.

Mitchell Alexander is a student at Northside High School and Neale Butler is a student at North Cross School.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle accidents are the biggest cause of death for teens in the U.S.

-Alexis Holland, William Byrd High School