TCEA2010-WestlakeHS-Vietnam+Project

=**Austin Westlake Highschool**= =**Virtual Vietnam Wall Project**= Janis Greeno

As a companion research project to the book __The Things They Carried__ by Tim O'Brien, students in our English III AP classes each research a person whose name appears on the Vietnam wall. Students then create a presentation honoring the individual's life and the time in which they lived.

Project Website: http://whs.eanes.k12.tx.us/virtualvietnam/ Links to blog and wikis dealing with the project.

Teacher is there to guide to help students find information on their soldier. School librarians of soldier's home town are a great resource to send information on the soldier. Teacher sends out email to other teachers asking if they have a family member they want memorialized. All students get an original name so they are sure that they don't duplicate memorials.

Tech specialist role: comes in the door after they have done all research.
 * Note: this is done in a windows enviornment
 * Students have powerpoint files.
 * Show them how to save slides as image files.
 * Creating movie files - use Movie Maker - Photostory - iMovie
 * Have tutorials posted on the Wiki - we could use Atomic Learning
 * Students put their story on slide dot com - has themes, has available music (copyright free)
 * Voice Thread - gives opportunity to add narration to the show. Can use the telephone to call in.
 * Link to Copyright Free or Creative Commons Music - all copyright free
 * Tell students, don't be afraid to contact the artist. James Taylor gave permission to use one of his songs.

Have a blog about the project. They have heard from many family members of the soldiers. Caution students to tell soldier's family to give the name of the teacher to the family so they contact them if there are any questions

Comment from a student: It wasn't a war story, it was a love story. I found Clyde on the virtual vietnam wall memorial website. My story ended up being mainly a story about Charlotte, his wife, because she still loves him. I conversed with her through email so my story was really her story about Clyde. On veteran's day they never really speak about the one's left behind.