Web Cam Brings India To Beggs Elementary School

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

BEGGS, OK -- A group of Beggs third graders talked to people on the other side of the world Wednesday morning. The teachers used something the kids love – computers - to teach them about and take them to a place they've never been.

"Why do the women wear red dots on their forehead, and what does that mean?" asked Payden Bradshaw.

Payden Bradshaw is a Beggs third grader. She's participating in a video conference with some new friends in India. The kids have been studying the continents and had some questions they wanted answered.

They want to learn by doing and seeing, they don't want to just read about it," said Sherrie Guthrie, third-grade teacher.

Sherrie Guthrie is one of the third-grade teachers, and her brother is working in India right now. So they used the Internet and a webcam to hold a video conference to ask and get answers to their questions.

Emma asked about the weather.

"How is the weather today and can you tell us about monsoon season?" she asked.

Seventy-six degrees, they said, and monsoon season runs through the summer months. They could have read that, but how much more fun this way.

But in this time of shrinking budgets where'd they get a web cam?

Cindy Swearingen, the Beggs Public Schools Superintendent, told us the teachers are very active grant writers finding money outside the budget to support programs they think they need.

"How can I take these kids out to a place they've never been to expand their horizons," said first-grade teacher Darla Six of her goals.

She helped write the grant that got the webcam and some training on how to use it - to go places like India to get questions answered like about those red dots on some Hindu women's foreheads.

Payden Bradshaw now knows the answer.

"They wear it when they are married," she said.

In Beggs you will find creative teachers using technology to help educate their students despite tight budgets.

Sherrie Guthrie's brother Roy Kulp will be in Japan in a few weeks, so they plan another web cam hookup with him and some of his colleagues there, to learn more about that country.