Hanging Judges, Outlaws, and the Trail of Tears: Vermont Students Connect to the Old West with New Technology

Imagine touring a national park and soaking in its history — all without ever stepping foot on the property. That’s exactly what students in Vermont did, thanks to a virtual field trip project by several students from Howe Public Schools in Oklahoma.

Middle school and high school students in Tammy Parks’ broadcast journalism class at Howe presented an interactive presentation last week for fourth- and sixth-grade students in Irasburg, Vt., broadcasting live from the Fort Smith National Historic Site via video conferencing equipment and the Internet, according to Parks. The collaboration projects will be submitted as entries in the Kids Creating Community Content International Contest, a competition in which Tandberg and the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration challenge middle school and high school teams to develop and present a videoconferencing program about their community.

“It’s an opportunity to take something in your students’ back yard and share with another group of students in the United States, or this year it went international,” said Parks, who teaches broadcast journalism at Howe Public Schools. Armed with three video conferencing units, a mobile commander (which is basically a satellite, according to Parks) and some cameras, the two Howe teams — one made up of six eighth-grade students and the other of six ninth-graders — presented different programs for the Vermont students.

The high school project, “Indian Territory, Western Lawmen and Outlaws: Tales from the Courthouse of 'Hanging Judge' Parker,” took students on a virtual tour of the old and new jails and Parker’s courtroom, along with sharing the stories of Anna Dawes, Cherokee Bill and marshals and deputy marshals who rode for Parker. In “Trail of Tears, Frontier Forts and the Notorious ‘Hanging Judge’ of the Wild West: Tales from the Fort Smith National Historic Site,” the Howe middle-schoolers also conducted a virtual field trip of the old and new jails, the gallows and Parker’s courtroom, as well as shared information on the Trail of Tears, the first and second forts and Parker himself.

“They were live and interactive,” said Parks, who is also director of federal programs for Howe Public Schools. “They were in live chat ... during the presentation.” Parks said the middle-school presentation also included a hands-on activity, in which the students in Vermont were sent a haversack kit and the Howe students led them in the creation of the haversack during the live video presentation.“ And we threw a T-shirt from Howe to Vermont,” Parks said, explaining that a shirt had been mailed to teacher Sean Wallace in Vermont and as the Howe students pitched the shirt toward the camera, Wallace threw the shirt from around the monitor to the classroom in Vermont. “They just loved it. They thought that was great.”

Parks said the partnership with the Vermont school, which was arranged after she posted a collaboration request online, was good in that both schools were about the same size and are both in rural areas. Some of Wallace’s sixth-grade students were quite intrigued with the experience, he said. Irasburg sixth-grader Cody Cole thought the gallows were pretty neat and wished they provided more information about them; he was surprised that people were sent to jail for drinking whiskey. “He also wondered why the rest of the Daltons turned to a life of crime after their brother was shot,” Wallace said.

Kiana Badan was fascinated with the story of Cherokee Bill and the association with the unlucky number 13, he added. “We all thought it was interesting that they were reporting without coats and we were able to see grass at the historical site,” Wallace said. “That day was 5 degrees here and we had snow everywhere.”

Prior to the field trip, participating students had access to an online classroom module specifically designed for this venue and topic. Developed using Moodle, the learning community gave students knowledge about the topic through a variety of learning tools, including forums, glossaries, Wikis, chats and quizzes. Wallace said many of his students enjoyed visiting the Moodle online classroom and playing the games, particularly Hangman. The Howe students also spent a Saturday at the National Historic Site conducting research and visited the park the week before the live presentation for a practice run-through.

The above article by Pam Cloud was reprinted from the Times Record from Friday, February 20, 2009.