Virtual Field Trips

Bob Coulter’s article entitled “What’s it like where you live?” offers very useful ideas for not only creating a meaningful, standards-based curriculum, but also for enhancing the value of such a curriculum with the use of technology. One of the messages that most resonates with me is this: “The key is for inquiry to drive the technology implementation and not vice versa, despite pressures to integrate technology into the classroom.” Since I have very little experience with curriculum planning, I have so far not been able to incorporate technology in very meaningful ways in the few lessons I have planned. I tend to fall into one of two ends on the spectrum: I either plan a lesson and then add on some form of technology as an “extra/bonus” to the regular curriculum, or I find some website or software that looks interesting and then try to plan a lesson entirely around that, which can be limiting. I have not yet mastered the art of integrating technology in a seamless and productive way.

In my student teaching setting, the emphasis is on interdisciplinary teaching. I am currently working on a Social Studies and Science unit that combines teaching about U.S. Westward Expansion and U.S. geography (landforms). So far, I have thought of a few hands-on activities and field trips to make this unit meaningful, interactive, and engaging for the students. However, after reading Coulter’s article, I am now even more excited about what I am planning because his tips have opened my mind to more possibilities. The way Coulter describes virtual field trips has me realize that the use of technology in the classroom literally leaves us with the “world at our fingertips.” We are no longer limited to field trips that are within a reasonable geographic distance. After reading this article, I, for the first time, explored Google Earth with the intention of incorporating it into this unit of study. I am sure my students will be just as engaged as I was (or hopefully more) when doing things such as exploring the Missouri River that Lewis & Clark had to cross on their expedition, or zooming in and seeing the geographical features of the land that people crossed when traveling on the Oregon Trail. In this way, I can continue to plan an interdisciplinary (Social Studies and Science) unit, keep it grounded in the standards, AND make the content come alive for students. Coulter describes this purposeful usage of technology best with these words: “In my experience, it is only in the context of rich experiential background that technology use is appropriate for elementary students.”