Field Trip Ideas
In -house field trips & presentations
Eyes On Owls
Visit the second graders at Florence Roche.
Click here to access the pictures and images collected during the visit. NOTE: images are for students and staff only.
Marcia Wilson from Eyes On Owls brought some friends and knowledge to our second grade classes who were beyond excited to learn about these wild creatures. Before the students filed into the classroom, I asked Marcia if I could take pictures and videos for school projects. Using the images and videos that I collected this day I started to build some project ideas for staff. Whether you have a guest speaker, or a trip out of the building, there are so many ways students can gather data and share with you what they learned and valued about their experience. Below are some ideas for integrating technology into any classroom experience.
As this was second grade and kind of on the fly, I choose to gather my own images and videos. If this was an older group, an external field trip, and we had additional resources, I could have tasked the students with gathering their own images and videos over the course of the presentation or travels through your destination. Using these images, I have started a variety of ways that you might use these images with students after the experience.
Build a slide deck with Google Slides or your favorite collaborative tool. Not only will the kids have fun building the slide deck but this provides an awesome resource that you can easily share work with parents, students, and other members of the school community. It's easy! It's collaborative! It's asynchronous! It's awesome!
You know yourself and your students. Once you are comfortable integrating a tool, gauge your students skill sets then build an appropriate set of actions to create an awesome artifact.
Start simple, build a template with title boxes, assign a page to each student, then have students add their own write-ups/type-ups, pictures, drawings, videos, or links. Obviously, you would not ask them to do all of these things unless they were ready. Continue to build on their skill sets with future projects as you incorporate new skills, maybe save adding hyperlinks or videos for a future project.
Do your kids have some skills? Take it a step further and have students insert their own slide then start from scratch. Set the criteria and let them have fun.
Take it up a notch. Place your students in groups, assign your project and let them choose a tool to build their own group presentation.
Try a tool like Thinglink to share what you know. Click on the image to the right to explore an example I created about the Barn Owl presentation. Using this web based tool, you can access a digital image, then add hot spots with links to media and relevant data. Thinglink lets you label parts of an image and link to external resources that include other details. For example, you could link to a video about the Barn Owl, a personal typed description, or even another Thinglink if you wanted to build a class set of student work.
Try a KEWL Pre-assessment
Adopted from iSAFE America. Save the "L" for last. :-)
Whether you want to build a pre-assessment to learn about what your student already know, a post-assessment to find out what they learned or both, Google Forms is a great tool. Below see the pre-assessment to the left and a potential post-assessment to the right.
Google forms is not just for collecting data. This awesome tool has a built in Quiz feature that you can customize. It lets you identify correct answer(s), provide feedback to responses whether right or wrong, add imagery, video, links and more. It will even auto grade the responses based on your input. You would likely want to review open responses on your own. That is possible too.
K - What you KNOW
E - Prior EXPERIENCE
W - WHAT you want to learn
L - LEADING others (Include this at the end of a unit.)
Field Trips
Document your trip. Use the video as a kickstarter for a future class or just to enjoy the memories.