Virtual Field Trips

Virtual field trips are digital field trips you can take with your students from inside your classroom.  They are fun and interactive.   You can travel do different places on Earth or explore animals.  There are even trips that align with the standards.  When preparing a virtual field trip there are some things you need to consider.  What do I want my students to take away from this trip?  How will I assess my students on what they have learned during the virtual field trip?  You can take these trips a few different ways.  You can use Google Goggles, Fieldtrip Zoom, which is a live tour trip, Discovery Education,  Google Expeditions, and You Visit.  They have many different virtual trips you can take based on different subjects.  You can take a math trip, a trip for budgeting, or a trip about decimals.  The apps and content are free but you may have some cost if you decide to purchase glasses for your class.  These can range from $5 to $15.  They are implementing a new virtual trip called career field trips.  This will be helpful to older students who are trying to decide what to do after High School.  You can take your students on a trip to The White House,  tour Mount Rushmore, or visit different zoos around the country.  You can plan these trips and have an assessment for the students to take after your trip to make sure they were engaged.  Having them put together a presentation about their favorite part of the trip to share with the class is another way to assess them.  This is a great option for low income schools.  Many of their students will never get the opportunity to travel anywhere so this helps give them a look at other parts of the world.

This is such a fun activity and I would love to do this at least once a week in my classroom.  Maybe on Friday’s after test to ease the tension.  Technology keeps evolving and there are more and more things we can do with our students that we were never able to do before.