Internet: Taking Learning Beyond the Classroom Walls

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Internet Taking Learning Beyond the Classroom
Walls

• Milpitas Christian School
• January 3, 2005

Gail Lovely www.GailLovely.com
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Overview of Session

• This workshop gives participants hands-on
  guidance in locating Web sites for virtual tours
  that enhance existing classroom lessons.
  Participants will develop activities that take
  their students on journeys to other landsand
  beyond.

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Objectives

• Explore a variety of Internet resources that
  support the classroom curriculum.
• Understand how to use Web site evaluation
  skills/rubrics.
• Gain an understanding of the variety of online
  activities and projects.
• Design a lesson using virtual tours on the
  Internet.

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Two Truths and a Dream

• http//www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/less
  on318.shtml

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Wishes, Hopes, Fears

• Every Workshop brings with it wishes, hopes and
  fears (or concerns)
• What are ours?

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Agenda

• Introductions and Overview
• Discussion of Strategies and Success Stories
• Examples of Virtual Field Trips
• Tools
• Filamentality
• TrackStar
• Word
• Rubistar
• Work Time
• Evaluation and Sharing

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Strategies and Successes
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Virtual Field Trips

• A definition A trip using the Internet which
  utilizes real-world resources or other rich
  resources to create experiences which are similar
  in depth/impact to real field trips.

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NOT a replacementfor the Real Thing!

• Field trips of our past
• Successful?
• Issues?
• Problems?
• Lessons Learned?

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Strengths

• Use of Primary Sources
• Letters, first hand accounts, pottery shards,
  diaries, THE places
• Primary sources encourage students to make
  inferences, hypothesize, and make comparisons.
• No one else is deciding what is important
• Virtual primary sources can provide these as well

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Strengths

• Can create a more student-directed approach to
  learning
• Provide multiple points of view or entry points
  to information and knowledge

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Types of Virtual Field Trips

• Fact Finding Missions
• Awareness Explorations
• Exposure to Primary Resources
• Multimedia Approach to Content
• Preparation for Actual Field Trips
• Follow-up to Actual Field Trips
• Way to Show What One Knows

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Fact Finding Missions

• Students visit a variety of online resources to
  learn about a topic or concept.
• Can be more like a scavenger hunt with guiding
  questions but be careful not to create an
  online worksheet.
• One example http//teacher.scholastic.com/activit
  ies/globaltrek/index.htm

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Awareness Explorations

• Students explore a land, culture, biome, career,
  to gain basic understanding or as an introduction
  to a topic.
• This approach can lead to application of
  knowledge or information later, or as a follow-up
  to a unit of study.
• Example (A compelling story)
• http//www.brookfieldzoo.org/pagegen/wok/index_f4.
  html
• http//www.greatestplaces.org/book_pages/top.html

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Exposure to Primary Resources

• A focused, first-hand experience MAY be the best,
  but seeing things or hearing things you cant
  hear or see or visit may be almost as good.
• Look, listen, explore the artifact, article,
  interview and come to your own conclusions, form
  your own questions for further exploration or
  validate your prior learning.
• An Example
• http//4hgarden.msu.edu/kidstour/tour.html
• http//www.chimacum.wednet.edu/elementary/oregontr
  ailVFT.html

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Multimedia Approach to Content

• Listening to the music of a time period, looking
  at the art of a nation or culture, exploring
  ideas, concepts and time periods through audio,
  video, art, and more to enliven and enrich the
  experience.
• Examples
• http//www.thebeijingguide.com/great_wall_of_china
  /index.html
• http//www.discovery.com/guides/history/titanic/Ti
  tanic/titanic.html

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Preparation for Actual Field Trips

• You can use or create a virtual field trip to
  help focus your students during a REAL field
  trip.
• Remove some distractions or provide some
  incentives for the physical trip.
• Provide a taste of what to expect and what they
  may want to explore more.
• Provide tools to prompt thought while on the
  trip.
• An Example
• http//www.thinker.org/fam/education/publications/
  ghost/index.html

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Follow-up to Actual Field Trips

• Compare a REAL trip with a virtual trip to the
  same (or a different) place
• Provides insight into how similar or different
  things may be (Are all farms alike?)
• Provides insight into how point-of-view may color
  presentation of facts online
• An Example
• http//www.msichicago.org/exhibit/farm/video.html

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Way to Show What One Knows

• Students can create their own virtual field trip
  for others.
• Students can explore on line and then compare and
  contrast their experiences.
• An Example
• http//trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/ts/viewTr
  ack.do?number242449

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Challenges

• While virtual field trips made with the Internet
  have some great advantages,  they also create
  several challenges. 
• Getting more comfortable with a learning process
  which is more controlled by the student and less
  directed by the teacher. 
• Having enough computers for all the students to
  take their virtual field trips.
• Planning, planning, planning!

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Virtual Field Trips Planning Steps

• Curriculum needs to drive the trip
• What does it help you teach or your students
  learn?
• (Internet skills is not enough)
• (Being interesting or fun or cool is not enough)
• You can often repurpose a trip to work FOR YOU
• Reading in Content Areas or for Details
• Enrichment
• Culture to go with a story to be read
• Teacher is still central in the planning!

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Virtual Field Trips Planning Steps

• Think through your lesson planning steps like
  normal!
• Introduce
• Purpose
• Input
• Guided Practice
• Independent Practice
• Assessment and Evaluation

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Virtual Field Trips Planning Steps

• Extend the learning during
• Paper Guidebooks
• Passports
• Travel Buddies
• Peers
• Experienced travellers
• Adult helpers
• Sketchbooks
• Question sheets, scavenger hunts or other guided
  experiences

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Virtual Field Trips Planning Steps

• And extend the learning after
• Create a Multimedia product
• Multimedia show, report or newscast
• Make a video review
• Create a Print product
• poster, travel brochure, report, newspaper
  article,
• Travel journal, diary, sketchbook
• Create a Performance
• Share a story or favorite place
• Act out a tour or visit
• Tell about it

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Virtual Field Trips Make them POWERFUL!

• Connections, connections, connections
• Guidance (but not spoonfed)
• Planning
• Have a sense of adventure!

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Lets See What WE can do!
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Everything is Online

• http//www.gaillovely.com/fieldtrips.htm