ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / August 12, 2000

LAPLACE – Teachers at John L. Ory Magnet School will soon be able to addtwo new occupations to their resumes – film makers and photographers.

As part of their mandated training as magnet teachers, faculty members at Ory are learning how to use digital camcorders and digital still cameras.

Karen Brooks, fourth-grade teacher and lead teacher for new technology said, “It’s awesome. The kids will be able to do lots of projects with this. Plus,the kids are so enthusiastic about anything to do with technology.”Gathered in the school auditorium, the faculty handles the high-tech cameras with a little trepidation and skepticism.

“The kids will love this,” said first-grade teacher Sue Miller as she tried to figure out where the on/off switch is. “If we learn how to use this.” Millersaid, laughing.

During the first part of their training, teachers were shown how to use camcorders then sent out into the wilds of St. John Parish to make their ownvideos.

When they returned to the school the videos were shown to everybody else and critiqued for style, content and technical know-how. Third-grade teacherTina Bouwer thought she did a pretty good job with her video of a pot-bellied pig she saw out at the Peavine Road boat launch.

After a lesson in camcorders, the faculty was given a lesson in using a digital still camera.

Joanne Proctor, who is instructing the teachers, told her class,”The nice feature of digital cameras is that you can delete the pictures you don’t want.

Plus, you save money on film.”John L. Ory Principal Teri Noel thinks this training will improve the students’participation in classes.

“The teachers will pass along the knowledge on to the students,” said Noel.

“They are also learning how to edit and manipulate the videos and pictures in the computer using special software.”Noel said the children can learn how to make multi-media presentations by incorporating text, photos and video.

“The possibilities are endless,” said an enthusiastic Brooks.

She will get her students to do a project where they will make brochures of themselves to hand out to other students. Each brochure will have picturesof the student, their family and anything else. Plus, there will be text giving ashort biography of the student.

Pam Clark, who teaches fourth grade, wants to use the cameras to “document what we are doing in the class throughout the year. I also want tointroduce the kids to technology that is different from computers.”Each grade level will get a camcorder and a digital still camera, and it is hoped that the new technology will spur interest and learning.

Special education teacher Karyn Hughes said, “I hope it will encourage students to do even more than what is expected of them.”Writing teacher Faith Ann Spinella is brimming over with ideas on how to use the cameras.

“We have a newspaper with the kids’ stories,” said Spinella, “and now we can use the pictures in the paper. We can also take pictures for all our writingactivities and use them to illustrate the student’s stories.”All this is leading up to the grand opening of the new all-digital, state-of-the- art television studio being built on the school’s second floor.

Proctor, who oversaw the building of the studio said, “This the first of its kind in an elementary school in Louisiana.”Noel hope the knowledge the students gain with the digital cameras will make it easier for them to get acclimated to the TV studio.

So who knows? In the next couple of years St. John Parish and John L. OryMagnet School of Communication Arts could be the home of a new generation of Steven Spielbergs, Katie Courics, Anne Rices and Spike Lees.

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