I'm teaching a fantastic new genealogy course at SLCC

If you read this blog, you may or may not know that I have been teaching Genealogy and Library Science courses for several years in the Continuing Education Department of Salt Lake Communtity College.  I was recruited by Karen Clifford to teach the Genealogy technology course that she and Lorraine Bourne had already developed.  It is three college credit hours and is taught entirely online.  This was a great fit for me.  I had been Lead Reference Librarian at SLCC before having my children and while there, I was on a multi-university team that wrote the first online class in the state of Utah.  (dating myself there aren't I?). Teaching online and creating engaging curriculums is something I've loved since my years teaching at BYU, SLCC, and then at my children's charter schools.

As I became more busy over the last couple of years, I kept teaching this class, I enjoyed interacting with the students but I didn't have time to do the technical and content updates that I wanted to with the class.  When Karen Johnsson asked me to teach a library course last year, of course I jumped at the chance to use my library skills, but the wonderful Library course developed by Jen Hughes made me want to find the time even more to update the Genealogy course and make it something worthy of this discipline I love and a worthy opening course to the whole Genealogy program.  The program has continued to develop too, with fantastic courses designed to help you prepare for certification, and taught by a world-class faculty with Kelly Summers and Sharon DeBartolo Carmack joining Karen and Lorraine and I.

Finally, this summer, Kelly and I dove in and re-wrote Genealogy 1000 Computer and Internet tools for Genealogy.  It is a fantastic course and I am really proud of it.  Anyone can take it, even an experienced genealogist who just wants to brush up on their tech skills.  The course is really quite brilliant.. It takes you through the basic principles of genealogy research and let's you explore and practice on the new technology by having you start with yourself and completely document and analyze the first three generations in your family.  So a beginner can start here, but even most experienced genealogists haven't usually gone back and really well documented their parents' and grandparents' lives.  It gives you the excuse to go back and do that first part right while you are trying out the new technology.

And the reason I want to take it myself is because of the "Preserving the Past and Present" module.  We go through websites where you can post your family history findings, blogs and social networking, interviewing, scanning and publishing and then your assignment is to pick a project that you have wanted to do and spend six hours working on what is most important in your history. It really is a chance to just spend some time doing what you have been wanting to do.  My sons have been talking about taking the course and  I really think it is a good enough course to hold their attention.  There are lots of videos and it is well organized.  I am excited to see what they would pick for the Preservation project.

I really loved working with Kelly.  We completely saw what needed to be done with the class in the same way, and we brought different skills and experience to the course which made a great combination.  I really respect and love Kelly as a person, and I'm really proud of what we've accomplished here together.

So take a look.... And come join us.  Registration needs to be done by August 16th.  You can take it from wherever you are... for credit or as an audit.  I know you'll learn something and you'll have an excuse to work more on your own family history.