New Moon Antiques

Lawrence County Tennessee: New Moon Antiques

OREGON DEPT. OF EDUCATION WEBSITE TOUR

* How will this assist you in your planning and teaching?

The Oregon Department of Education website is an incredible resource for teachers, but especially for someone like me who is brand new to the profession. It showcases, in a very informative and useful way, the various standards for each specific area and grade. I will use this site extensively in my own student teaching as a way to make sure my lesson plans are matched to the appropriate state standards. I particularly like the way the standards can be downloaded to Excel to make matching my lessons to state standards even easier. I think it is also helpful to be aware of the previous grade's standards, other subject standards, and the expectations for the following years.
I think the lesson plan ideas for the various grades are very helpful, in adddition to the accompanying charts showing the different subject areas and which lesson ideas can be applied across which curricular areas. There were lots of great ideas I could see launching whole units from, especially in the context of my fifth grade student teaching.


* What items might you use or modify?
I found several aspects useful, among them:
I like the sample tests for students and the list of test-taking tips. I think these would be beneficial in helping my students lesson their test anxiety.
I also really like the sections addressing talented and gifted and/or high achieving students. Many times these students fall by the way side as a teacher struggles to reach out to the students who are falling behind. This is simply not fair. In this area for gifted students there are some excellent graphic organizers which lay out the cognitive processes that should be addressed with kids at this advanced level, along with excellent questions. Richard Paul and Linda Elder lay out a wonderful list of universal intellectual standards that they say students should be guided by, which I also found very helpful. In addition, I believe that these graphic organizers can be used for all types of students. They offer an excellent visual representation of various concepts, as well as paths to take in exploring a topic - regardless of a student's level. The Venn diagrams will be great tools, too, to help my students understand the relationships between things in a visual way.

Overall, this ODE is just a great tool for me.

Final Self-Assessment

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AeDalTi6-GfBZGdmNjlkeHNfNTA2YzZtaG01ZmQ&hl=en

I have finished my self-assessment and it is in the form of a Google Doc which can be seen at the link. My entire practicum was built around ed tech so I believe I exceeded the expectations.

Fun and Easy! MULTI-MEDIA CLASS PROJECT

If you work in a school with access to basic video editing software there are simple ways to create projects that do not require a lot of production time. (I put together a sample and posted it to my YouTube site - the link is at the bottom of this post.) In this project, students were assigned the task of writing an imaginary news or feature segment using Jack London's Yukon Territory as a backdrop. They were told to write a short segment (one-two minutes) using actors to do two video interviews: one "official" information source, and one victim/witness/person directly involved in the story. For pictures, instead of shooting video (which we did not have either time or access to), I told them to download copyright-safe photos from the web. These were plugged into the story between the videotaped interviews. This is so much fun and teaches every one of the new Oregon Technology Standards.

**Check out the story link below to see the sample I did using my own kids.
http://www.youtube.com/morantv#p/u/14/26kXR4ZEHbY
The class segments are available at http://judsonicedogs.webs.com

SPREADSHEETS FOR STUDENT SCORES

Google spreadsheets are clearly very useful for charting students' progress and also simple to use. As you can see in the chart above, student average scores are rising with each test which is exactly what I hope to see. This tells me we are on the right path and is a wonderfully visual way to chart our course. The spreadsheets take piles of number and turn them into useful visual paths that help me correct my course of teaching. To see more charts and the data follow the link below:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t08VZ9j9swQ9flzJ-HF2y5A&output=html

OR Tech Standards Comments

 I think the Oregon technology standards are a welcome addition to state standards that until now, hardly addressed technology at all. Kids today are growing up in a world of multimedia communication that most adults could not imagine even twenty years ago. Yet too many teachers know less about technology than the students they teach. These standards are an excellent start to educating our students in this new world of multi-level, global and instant communication they are growing up in, but without being accompanied by wide-ranging teacher technology education, they are almost pointless. 

I have read research studies that show that many teachers are afraid of technology because they don't understand it. They simply do not have the experience. If we are to educate our students, we need to reach out to teachers, too - in fact, it needs to be a teacher requirement. But also, it should be available to teachers free of cost as part of their general education.

The whole face of communication is changing right now and I am happy to see that Oregon is working to stay atop of these changes with it's new tech standards.

In my own practicum class, an eighth-grade Language Arts class, I addressed almost every one of these standards by requiring students to create a news video segment that took place in the Yukon Territory, which they had to research on the web. It used a combination of team work, creativity, photography, writing, and sharing by uploading their scripts to Google Docs, and then publishing the segments on the web to share with family and friends. This project addressed communication and collaboration, sharing, research and technology concepts.

The difficulties in this kind of project are many. Some of the big ones for me are making sure that all of the students are given access to the technology on an equal basis, as well as having a teacher who understands and can use the technology. Also, in group work of this kind, it's easy for one or two technolgy-savvy students to take over a project, while the ones who need it the most hang in the back and don't get the experience they need. Also, a lack of up-to-date computer software can really slow these projects down, as well as someone who can offer tech support when things don't work.

But overall, this is such worthwhile information for our students and well worth any problems!

I think this kind o

Final Ed Tech Project Overview

      I just completed an extensive educational technology project with 27 students in an eighth-grade language arts class. The project involved teaching the kids how to write, research, shoot video and edit a TV news segment. We also used Google Docs, GetDropBox, IMovie, and a very involved web page that included having the kids upload their photos to albums on the website.  You can see the class website and the projects at http://Judsonicedogs.webs.com

       You can see a short outline, description, standards addressed and challenges (for my Ed Tech final) regarding the project at
 http://sites.google.com/site/jmoranfinalproject/home.

Uses for Video/Still Photo Editing Software: Lake Oswego Junior Rowing:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2olP_kth-Uc

Yes, you CAN combine video and still photographs into one video segment without having it look like a stagnant "slide show". Add music, edit to the music, use varying dissolve lengths and "pushes and pulls" in your edit software to make your piece move.
          Also, edit your still photos into Google's Picasa (free photo editing software) first, to perfect your framing and colors. Remember, videos should be entertaining, not boring so make it move!
         The first part of this video that I did for the Lake Oswego Rowing Club in June was shot with a small Canon HD camara and an on-camera mic that I added myself, plus a wide-angle lens I added. The still photos were shot on my Canon 35mm digital camara.
         A final note: make sure you wear headphones when you shoot video to be certain that you are getting your audio loud and clear. If you do't have audio, yoiu don't have anything! Get close if you need to - a wide angle lens can help you get close and still have a nice wide shot. Have fun! See more videos of mine at www.morantv.com