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

My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools...!

Web 2.0 is the way of the future for today's modern classroom. Don't know what it is? Web 2.0 encompasses all the "cloud" applications on the web available for us - many of them free!!! These applications are not downloaded to separate computers. Instead, they are accessed by simply going online and signing in. This allows you to access data, software, documents - whatever - from ANY computer. All you need is internet access. No need to download memory-heavy software, either. You can store huge amounts of data online, from simple documents to videos and photos. Worried about a fire destroying your precious photos and videos? Store them online!

The thing is this: Use the tools or get left behind and be seen as a classroom dinosaur. It's our JOB as teachers to know about these things, and to introduce our students to them. Not only that - it's a blast! And makes our lives LESS complicated, not more.

Two of my personal favorites are Google Docs and Picasa. I can store all my documents and photos online, but also SHARE them. I use them ALL the time. Some others? Skype, and GetDropBox to store HUGE amounts of data online. Great for video trading with my production partner in Tennessee.

Blogs in My Classroom: A Perfect Fit

A class blog is a wonderful way to create a sense of community and belonging. It also can allow students to have a voice in what is happening. They also can be a great way to help family stay in touch with what is happening. A great blog can utilize video projects, photos from field trips and happenings; artwork; calendars with upcoming events, and anything else you can dream up. A blog puts a creative face on a class and also shows your students that you are part of the technology world.

Fun with Yodio...at OTEN

 JENNIFER CHECKS OUT NEW USES FOR VIDEO AT OTEN CONFERENCE- LIKE THIS YODIO TECHNOLOGY! LISTEN IN...

 

On Becoming A Fifth-Grade Teacher: A Television Journalist Does a Mid-Life Crisis

The decision to become a teacher and join the Willamette MAT program did not come easily or quickly. Especially after twenty years in another field, one I loved. But it is absolutely the right one, of that I am certain. 
       
How did I get here? I'm still trying to figure that one out... I grew up in a small, sandy-floored beach town in Southern California called Newport Beach. I have six siblings, and through the years, we are as juvenile as ever when we get together.  My elementary school was one of only two in the nation actually on the beach. To this day, I associate sounding out my first letters to the sounds of seagulls, waves and the smell of salt air. I have been a reading fanatic every since.

         

I have always had a fierce hunger to explore new places and after high school, I moved to Sun Valley, Idaho, to ski bum. Forget college, I quickly decided. Who needed it? Then I got a reporter job on a local paper and discovered photography. I left Idaho to get a journalism degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson, then went on to the acclaimed Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles to become a commercial photographer. 

        
My three years at Art Center was the most difficult thing I had ever faced. Grueling hours in studios and darkrooms, learning everything possible about composition, lighting and the creative execution of ideas. This was a professional program, and unlike my past experiences in school, they weren't fooling around. But the biggest surprise of all was how much I loved the material, as well as the challenge. Art Center taught me not only how to really see, but also to fully commit to hard work and not be afraid of criticism. Just as important, I learned how to treat my art and talent as a professional which has taken me far in my career.

Nevertheless, after all that advertising photography, I missed the rawness of street journalism and decided my heart was in television documentary work. On the strength of my Art Center portfolio, I was hired by a tiny TV station in Grand Junction, Colorado, and just a few months later got a job shooting news back in Tucson. Three years later, I jumped to one of the best documentary stations in the nation at that time, WBZ-TV in Boston. 

In Boston, I became known as someone who worked well with kids. Because of that, I worked on projects with underprivileged children of all races, ages and economic levels. Along the way, I had my white-girl-from-Newport-Beach eyes opened to some extremely difficult realities, including a tragic show on the kids at Boston's Children's Hospital. 

       
Two years later, I moved to Seattle where I freelanced for twelve years as a videographer, producer and editor for a wide range of both local and national clients. These included all three local affiliates, Sixty Minutes, Microsoft, the Today Show, Swedish Hospital, McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, along with dozens of other shows produced through the local PBS affiliate, KCTS. 

         
It was through KCTS that I fell into my most life-changing television project. I became one of three Directors of Photography for Bill Nye the Science Guy, a groundbreaking Disney/PBS children's science show that was breaking every educational television rule out there - and winning every National Emmy in the book. In fact, I received my own national Emmy nomination as a Director of Photography with the show. But best of all, the kids loved it. Wierd, nerdy science teacher Bill  became a superstar! 

       
 I was a single-parent with a two-year old child at that time, and I began to look at educating children in an entirely different way. It didn't have to be boring, I realized. In fact, children could learn very complex concepts if you only knew how to reach them in stimulating, creative ways. 

         
Raising a child took me back into my own childhood, and at 35, I began to relive and re-frame many of my own experiences growing up in a loving, but very rambunctious Irish Catholic family of seven children. As a working single mother, I read every book I could lay my hands on to meet the challenges of parenting. But still I wondered, how did my mother raise seven children and stay sane?

        
When my daughter, Sophia, left her preschool to start kindergarten, her young teacher wrote me a note I have never forgotten. She said that Sophie was one of the most remarkable children she had ever met. Then she told me why. One day she found Sophie standing in front of a mirror, staring at herself in the way preschoolers often do. When the teacher asked her what she was thinking, Sophie said, "I am wondering what it would be like to take my eyeballs out so that I could turn them around and put them back in to see what the back of my head looks like." Wow, I thought. Wow.
That story stayed with me. As a photographer, I kept wondering what it would be like to see the world through a child's eyes.
        
When Sophie reached third-grade, I devised a project with her entire third grade class to explore the idea of how children see the world. Her open-minded teacher loved the idea and I dove in. I began with a series of mini-lectures on how to make interesting images. Find interesting angles, I told them. Climb a tree. Get under the table. Get close. In your dog's face. And above all, learn to see light. Study it. And take chances - make lots of mistakes. Many won't work but maybe two, or even just one, would be totally cool. And perfect. 
        
Next, we handed every child a disposable camera with the assignment, show me a feeling. Show me what Lonely looked like. Peaceful. Mysterious. And save room for some Just Plain Cools. Finally, I told them, "This is your vision, not mine. There can be no wrong. Just make it interesting."
 
The work they brought back was nothing short of astonishing. I enlarged the prints, matted them, and one night at school, hung the show for our "gallery opening." No one was more taken aback then the parents. They expected little kid snapshots. Instead, they walked straight into a wall of images that looked straight out of a New York gallery. Up front, in your face, full of emotion, insight, loneliness, awareness - and beauty. Years later, parents would stop me on the street to tell me that the project was their child's favorite from all their elementary years. I was moved.
        
I have now run the project, which I call "True Colors", three times in three states. Each time the results are remarkable. The insights of the children stuns everyone - from teachers and parents, to school administrators - but best of all, the children LOVE it. And slowly, I began to visualize this idea of making my living doing what I loved to do for free - teach kids.
      
Four years ago, I was offered a reporting job in Nashville, Tennessee, where I could choose, shoot, edit and report my own feature segments. I jumped at the idea. It was first time to actually be the face fronting my own segments, and I was terrified but thrilled. I have always fought terrible stage fright but I was ready to finally face down those demons. 

      
I loved the South. It was the only corner of the country I had not lived in, and it was a fabulous cultural education for both myself and my two girls, now 10 and 16. But when management changed in late 2006, my contract was bought out, and again, I was left wondering what to do next.

        
Then God stepped in. A good friend, musician Gene Cotton, had been after me to teach a video production course at a local summer arts academy that he and some well-known musician friends including Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, had founded a dozen years before. Since I finally had the time, I agreed. Little did I know the tidal wave of change it would set in motion in my life. 

        
The Kids On Stage program was created to address terrible local school performance issues. The lovely, tiny community of Leiper's Fork, Tennessee, had attracted a very caring and creative group of local residents, and they pondered how to address the school issue. Only thirty miles from Nashville, the group decided to implement a music program in the school that was aimed at the kind of music kids love to play - mostly, rock and roll. They gathered up donations of guitars, keyboards, and top-of-the-line sound recording equipment, and created - in this little country school - a stunning Nashville-level music recording studio and program where every child learned to play and record music. In only a few years, the school scores skyrocketed.
        
Now, every June some of the top musicians and music producers from Music Row in Nashville, people like Michael McDonald and Vince Gill, take time out of their busy road tours to come and play, and teach kids from all economic and skill levels. Things like, how to play electric guitar, bass, sing, song-write, performance skills, roadie skills - you name it. And even, learn video journalism. With me.
       
 I am not sure what part of Kids On Stage I fell more in love with - the beauty of pride and wonder on my kids' faces when I help them shoot something wonderful, or the hearts of the teachers who truly love these kids and are thrilled to help them succeed. What I learned at Kids On Stage was that these were the kinds of people that I wanted to be around. People who cared about the welfare, education and the creative souls of these children. People who were willing to put their free time where their hearts were - teaching kids.
        
My friends at the Bill Nye show, and then more recently at Kids on Stage, have taught me that kids can learn amazing skills and talents - and have a blast doing it! - if only caring people take the time to teach them in creative ways. So that is my goal: to make my classes creative, adventurous, wild, fun, serious, wide-ranging and a place of wonder. I want to teach my kids the joys of learning through books, photography, video production, and real-life experience. 

      
I will have high expectations of them, and in turn, I will give them my absolute best and learn how to improve my teaching skills from them. Because, after all, teaching should be a two-way street. I feel incredibly honored to be part of Willamette's MAT program. Teaching is a huge responsibility and challenge, but I am prepared to give my kids every thing I have gathered from my many life experiences to help them move out into the world better equipped and excited to learn.


This opportunity is the result of reaching, in Robert Frost's famous words, a diversion of two paths, and I am choosing this path in the undergrowth, "because it was grassy and wanted wear. (1919)" 

 You can see a video I created with my class about Kids On Stage program at: 
http://www.morantv.com/KidsOnStage.html

(You can see a video I put together that showcases the Tennessee True Colors photography project at:
http://www.morantv.com  (Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page.)