Today I went on a virtual field trip with some 4th graders. They had gone to the computer lab and had gone through some provided pre-activities. However, they became bored during the virtual field trip. Their complaints:
Too much talking
Fast talking
Too many pictures of people talking and not enough of what they were talking about
Many big words
They did not explain and practice the activity before doing all of it (a dance)
Things weren’t together (all the segments on animals were not together)
They could not call in with a question (the number was not clear on the screen)
The called in questions were all mixed up (not on the info just presented)
There was only one thing (activity) to do during the field trip
The picture was fuzzy (Quicktime and streaming)
It was too long (it was an hour)
Did they learn things? Learn may be too strong of a word. They were exposed to many disjointed ideas. Many segments interested them but most segments were very short (not quite a sound byte but close). The viewing students were never asked to think through a problem (Where do you think the lava would flow? Why do you think only birds were on the island?); they were just bombared with brief details.
We think that next time we’ll use an already done virtual field trip and only use certain segments of it. We can stop the “video” and talk about a concept so that the students understand the concept before going on. We can do an experiment during the field trip. We can help students see how a culture that seems very different is quite similar to them. We’ll engage the students. We’ll structure the experience so students can be on learning path.
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