CANYON, TEXAS -- It's no secret that the economy has everyone tightening their budgets from businesses to schools. It's forcing many of us to get creative. And that includes the school districts in Region 16. Region 16 and the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum have teamed up to give smaller districts in the region a chance to visit the museum without even leaving the classroom, with technology's help. Distance education, bringing the history of the Great Plains to students via the internet.
"The distance learning program is something the museum has been involved with for several years and use it to show artifacts, or to show different demonstrations that we've had at the museum," said Carley du Menil, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum.
The idea behind the program is to save school districts the cost of field trips to the museum, but still teach the students the importance of the artifacts that are kept inside.
"Budgets are always something that schools have to be concerned about and something they have to think about when they're deciding what to do," said du Menil.
So how does it work? With the help of technology, the museum and the classrooms are linked through webcams. And then there are discussions on topics from the history of Quanah Parker to how to make a headdress.
"Video conference is something that allows a lot of different mediums to be presented to the kids, first of all they get to hear me and I get to ask them questions and they get to respond so its not like they're sitting and watching a movie or something like that they're interacting and they're being a part of the discussion," said du Menil. And get this. The museum isn't linking up just with students in Region 16. Students as far away as Florida are part of this, too.
