Wordcrafters Festival this Weekend

Saturday, March 5th

Be Writing: Wordcrafters Writing Festival

8:30 am – 7:00 pm, UO Baker Center Downtown, 975 High Street, Eugene

Oakridge High Students Featured in NewArt Northwest Kids

L-R: Kyla Wilder, Gage Burton, and Melissa Rouska

Three students from Oakridge School District have been selected to display their artwork at the 2016 NewArt Northwest Kids exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA). The art in the exhibit was selected via a juried competition, which received 247 submissions united by the theme, “The Road Not Taken.” Kyla Wilder, Gage Burton, and Melissa Rouska submitted their work at the urging of their art teacher, Bev Isacksen.

Rainbow Road by Kyla Wilder

Wilder described her submission, Rainbow Road, as a self-portrait on a cloud. “Each cloud represents an experience that influenced my art,” she said. From early drawings and video games to her tight-knit friendships, the clouds surround and support the central figure of the artist.

Keep Portland Weird by Melissa Rouska

Rouska, who moved to Oakridge from Portland three months ago, expressed her love for her former home in her piece Keep Portland Weird. “You can’t see that many stars in Portland,” she said, “but I drew it the way I like to imagine it.”

Contrast by Gage Burton

Burton shows the dichotomy between urban and rural in Contrast. Drawn entirely in black, the city skyline and streets morph into trees and mountains.  “I do all my art in black,” said Burton. “I just prefer it that way.”

STELLAR is proud to congratulate these three young people on receiving recognition for their excellent work. Rouska, Burton, and Wilder, along with the 44 other young artists selected for the exhibition, will be honored at a reception at JSMA on May 21.

For more information about NewArt Northwest Kids, visit jsma.uoregon.edu/NANK2016.

Imagination International Art Bus Visits Lundy Elementary

It’s 3 PM on a Wednesday, and the Imagination Bus is packed with eager second-graders.  The bus, covered in eye-catching murals and dubbed “Artie,” has made its way to the rural town of Lowell, Oregon for the second in a series of five visits to Lundy Elementary School. A collaboration between Imagination International, Inc. and the River Road Park and Recreation District, Artie the Imagination Bus is on a mission. The rolling classroom, with room for 22 students at a time, brings arts education to schools throughout Lane County.

Artie the Imagination Bus

Students in the program learn basic skills while doing fun art projects, according to Lundy Principal Kay Graham. “We have had very positive feedback from the students and staff.  It is great to have an art class on wheels.”

Lundy teacher Jessica Edgerton agreed. “It is so neat to hear about all the creativity that is coming out of this experience.  The first few weeks, the students thought were really tough. They weren't fully understanding the color wheel.  But now that they have been putting it to use and coloring, drawing, they are very excited.”

Imagination International staff teaching Lundy students the fundamentals of art.

Imagination International generously donated the visits to schools participating in the STELLAR Project at the University of Oregon’s Center for Advanced Technology in Education. Additional funding was provided by Philip and Sandra Piele through the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

Community Program Instructor Nori Rice explained that while Imagination International has numerous educational programs, they only have one art bus, and Artie’s schedule is filling up. “It goes out to Kelly Middle School twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays and comes out to Lundy for two classes on Wednesdays. So it’s three times a week now, but during the summer it’ll be five times a week,” Ms. Rice said.

The art bus program was launched in October with the goal of bringing art education to the community. This mission is especially valuable to rural districts where arts funding has been reduced or eliminated entirely.  At Lundy, the bus is so popular that there isn’t enough room for all the students who want to participate this time, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be other opportunities. “We hope to have the bus return for summer classes as well as during the 2016-2017 school year,” said Principal Graham. “This is a great partnership and we are thrilled with the opportunity provided to Lundy Elementary School.”

A young artist hard at work.

School administrators who are interested in scheduling a visit from Artie can find more information, including how to contact the River Road Park and Recreation District at www.rrpark.org. To learn more about the STELLAR Project, visit owp.uoregon.edu. To learn more about  the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, visit jsma.uoregon.edu.

STELLAR Board Meeting, December 10

The STELLAR board held its monthly meeting at the Center for Advanced Technology in Education on Thursday, December 10. STELLAR Principal Investigator Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman and Project Facilitator Peggy Marconi welcomed new team members and updated the board on recent progress and accomplishments.

Since the successful 2015 Kickoff on October 23, STELLAR participants have met biweekly in Second Life for further training. Additionally, teachers have begun meeting for reading groups to discuss Visual Thinking Strategies, by Philip Yenawine, an integral text for the project. Plans for training the project mentors include Second Life sessions with a VTS representative.

Peggy and Lynne also reported about the project’s dissemination and community outreach efforts, including a presentation at the National Writing Project Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. The meeting concluded with a discussion of exciting new opportunities for STELLAR participants and the broader community.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will be housing one of Shakespeare’s original Folios from January 6-February 6, 2016. The exhibition will offer a teacher professional development workshop on Wednesday, January 13. While the workshop is open to any Oregon middle or high school teacher, space is limited and registration is required. For more information, visit https://jsma.uoregon.edu/ShakespeareEvents.

STELLAR/VTS Kickoff 2015

STELLAR officially kicked off its second year October 23-24, with prior participants returning to serve as mentors to a whole new group of participating teachers. Over two days, teachers from four districts immersed themselves in preparation for the upcoming year, learning about Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), STELLAR, Second Life, and more.  

Friday night, participants learned the ins and outs of the STELLAR Project’s immersive virtual training environment. Friday, the group met at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) for an intensive VTS training presented by Yoon Kang-O’Higgins of the Visual Thinking Strategies organization.

After the training, participants had an opportunity to practice VTS in the JSMA galleries, asking the three central questions of VTS:

1. What’s going on in this picture?
2. What do you see that makes you say that?
3. What more can we find?

What a great start to our new year!

Photo credit: Eric Tuck. Used with permission.

The cards are stacked in favor for the first Global Writing Project Summer Institute

It’s a picture perfect setting for the first day of class.  The grass is green the sky is blue, the weather is perfect and the floating stack of playing cards make great seats.  No I’m not imaging things, it’s true. The Global Writing Project (GWP) Summer Institute really has floating cards as seats.  How is this possible you might ask? Well, The GWP Summer Institute is located in a 3D immersive environment known as Second Life.  Peggy Marconi, associate direct of the Oregon Writing Project at the University of Oregon, had an idea to counter the federal budget cuts for professional development of educators in the US.  Armed with a team of experts in literary arts, technology and 3D immersive environments, Peggy opened up this idea to all educators from around the globe.

 On June 25^th 2012, the first ever literary arts professional development summer institute in Second Life began.  Classmates gathered from different corners of the world including, Lagos Nigeria, Rodos Greece, Washington DC and Oregon USA.   The first day consisted of an overview to the class, interactive lessons on using the 3D space, professional photo shoot for all participants (aka avatars) and meeting fellow classmates.  It was a full morning of adjusting to a totally new and exciting environment.  Reflecting on her first day in the GWP Summer Institute, Anastasia Bekou, an English Teacher in Greece, noted that the experience “was exciting!”

The second day had some technical difficulties.  The voice chat feature wasn’t working, but it didn’t stop the participants from effectively engaging through the chat box with presenters and fellow classmates.  The topics presented ranged from “Setting Web Preferences” to “Using art as inspiration to write in the middle grades” and provoked interesting discussions.  

Regardless of the learning curve or technical difficulties, one thing is for sure. Everyone is excited to see what happens with this new approach to educational professional development and the global connections that ensue.

Project DIRECT at AERA

On April 16th 2012 in Vancouver BC, the paper "Rural Educators in the 21st Century: Using Evidence-based Practices with Communication Technologies" was presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in the poster session of Division C - Learning and Instruction/Section 7: Technology Research. Alongside my co-author Lynne Anderson-Inman, we answered a stream of questions about the uniqueness of Project DIRECT to interested scholars from around the nation. One passerby, whom also works in professional development, expressed such an appreciation for the project he will be joining us in Second Life as a guest to witness this magic in action. One thing was quite evident at AERA this year,  there is a push for more innovative means of professional development and Project DIRECT is among a handful of initiatives leading the way.  If you or anyone you know is interested in visiting Project DIRECT in Second Life, please be our guest. For an invitation simply send an email to projectdirect2010@gmail.com.