Excellent Virtual Field Trips For Your Students

I've posted a few articles on field trips and I know you value the experiences for your students.  While there are countless examples - actual and virtual - it may be difficult for you to make excellent choices.  Meris Stansbury, associate editor of  eSchool News gives you a list of 10 wonderful virtual field trips that will help build useful lessons that engage students to learn more.  I particularly like those that contribute to the 21st Century Skill, "global awareness."  So many of our students understand the world around them but are ignorant of other lands and world issues.
Explore these virtual sites and I'm sure you'll find several that fit into your curriculum.


Ten of the best virtual field trips.  Meris Stansbury, 4.7.13. eSchoolNews
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2013/04/07/ten-of-the-best-virtual-field-trips/?

Field Trips - One Teacher's Excellent Ideas

Amanda Wall has taken many of her students on overnight trips.  She shares 6 of her lessons as examples for you to see how field trips are worth the preparation and lead to more in-depth learning.  Ms. Wall offers 6 tips for successful academic field trips that you could yourself in planning class trips.


6 Tips to Boost Learning on Class Field Trips.  Amanda Wall. 4.29.13. MiddleWeb, featured in Stenhouse Newslinks. 5.15.15
http://www.middleweb.com/7285/academic-field-trips/

Use Virtual Field Trips to Enhance Your Curriculum

It is impossible to personally visit many significant sites in the world such as the Louvre, Smithsonian, or Washington D.C. sites.  Other sites close to home may be too expensive to finance bus transportation and supervision.  Realizing the significance of the digital age, many sites have produced virtual field trips that can add immeasurable information to your students in math, reading, science, and social studies curriculums.  Some virtual tours have prepared lessons that you can use.  If not, use the Field Trip model shown in the other field trip blog entry that can tailor a lesson to fit your purposes and those of a variety of learners in your class.  Read this article for ideas you might use.


Virtual Field Trips Spice Up Learning.  Barbara R. Blackburn. 4.26.15. MiddleWeb
http://www.middleweb.com/22188/virtual-field-trips-spice-up-learning/

Power Up Your Field Trips!

Many classes go on field trips - to a farm - to the zoo - art museum - to an historic site -.  For too many classes, this is a day for fun, an escape from school.  And sadly, teachers go along with it too.  Some years ago, I did my masters' research paper on field trips and I went around with many classes of students, from all different kinds of schools and all different age students.  Most classes went for fun and surprisingly the site docents didn't do very much either to make it an learning experience.  The result of my research ended in providing field sites and teachers with an instructional model so that these excursions can be powerful learning experiences.  In our organization, Learning Exchange, we use this model for our summer school field trips.
     I also want to mention that some schools cannot afford the cost of transportation and admission to some sites.  In many cases, representatives from the site will come to the school.  Also, if nothing else works, we now have internet access to a number of national sites that offer field trip experiences.  All field trips require teacher preparation.  These can be powerful learning opportunities.  Make the most out of it.

Hope the following model is useful to you.  Offer your opinions below in Comments.
                                                                                                                                     Pat Hinske


                                                   Field Trip Instructional Model

Field Trip Organization

Teacher Planning	Before	During	After
·   Pre-visit desirable, but not essential ·   Conversations with Site Personnel  Guided/Unguided Teacher materials from site Student Activity ideas – Locate a pre-reading selection. Opportunity for students to ask questions during the experience. ·   Transportation ·   Chaperones ·   Other logistics	Administer a pretest with basic background knowledge and key vocabulary.   Background information     From Site     From websites     Pre-reading selection            about site Develop Lesson Plan Important vocabulary and major concepts Form questions with students to discover or ask about on the site. Develop observational purposes/tasks for the “During” phase.	All students should have an observational task that engages their attention and for which they are held accountable.   Consider pairing students together during the trip.   Tasks should have “differentiation” in mind.  Plan tasks at about 3 levels (because of different ability levels).  What all students should observe/ What some students should observe  What all students would like to find out or learn more later.	·   Share/discuss observations that may include conversations in class or at home. ·   Review key vocabulary and concepts. ·   Collect documented observations. ·   Share students’ personal perceptions, attitudes, thoughts or viewpoints about the site. ·   Share questions students may offer about what else they would like to learn. ·   Administer post-test and measure differences in scores.