A Father and Daughter Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools

Monday, March 30th 2009 by Jim BeeghleycloseAuthor: Jim Beeghley Name: Jim Beeghley
Email: fifer1863@gmail.com
Site: http://www.teachthecivilwar.com
About: See Authors Posts (1)

Since she was one month old, my daughter Sarah has shared one of my two passions; my passion for the Civil War.  She traveled with us to battlefields and Civil War reenactments and helped me do presentations to classrooms learning about the Civil War.  But it wasn’t until I was working on completing my doctoral dissertation on how Pennsylvania teachers are using technology to teach the Civil War that she started to get into my other passion, educational technology.

When she was in 4th grade, I helped her create a multimedia project about Clara Barton for a school project.  My daughter goes to a small school that does not have a lot of technology and does very little in terms of technology integration.  The students in my daughter’s class were asked to do a biography of a famous person and Sarah quickly chose Clara Barton.  She asked me if we could use the computer to do the presentation and I set out to show her how to create a digital story with photos and music.  This simple project gave me a chance to work with her one on one and spend some quality “dad” time with her.  After she completed and presented her project, I posted it on my blog and it was then showcased by the Civil War Preservation Trust.

Now my daughter is in 6th grade and recently created a project called Civil War Sallie for the Pennsylvania Middle School Computer Fair.  Civil War Sallie is a donated Boyd’s Bear that travels around looking for Civil War battlefields, museums and classrooms in an effort to learn more about the Civil War and to share her travels on the Internet.   This educational “follow me” project uses web 2.0 tools to teach others about the Civil War.

My daughter and I now travel around to different state and national conferences and schools presenting to teachers and educators on how to use technology for the teaching of the Civil War.  For example, in addition to the recent Pa Educational Technology Conference, this year she will also be helping me to present at the the Civil War Preservation Trust Teachers Conference and the AACH Conference.  As part of NECC 2009, Sarah will be helping me with my poster session along with presenting as part of the student showcase.  According to Sarah, “these projects have helped to build my confidence and allowed me to  improve my communication skills when I write emails or talk to people.  These  projects have also given me the opportunity to spend more time with my dad.”

In addition to this, my daughter is now a regular contributor to my blog and her posts are by far more popular than mine.  She is thinking more and more about how some of her school projects can be turned into either blog posts or submitted via technology.

Finally, Sarah’s projects have started to help her school see the value of educational technology.  In addition to a recent purchase of several SmartBoards, teachers are starting to allow students to submit projects electronically and Sarah is helping her teachers to create wikis and blogs.

So, if you need help with teaching the Civil War, please check out my webiste at http://www.teachthecivilwar.com or if your classroom is learning about the Civil War or you live near a Civil War Battlefield or museum, please consider having Civil War Sallie come for a visit.

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