Education World ® Technology Center: Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips

Education World ® Technology Center: Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips

Directly from the website: You look outside the classroom window and see yet another in a long string of gloomy days. Inside the classroom, restless students seem mired in malaise. It must be time for a field trip! No money, you say, for busses or admission fees. No time for travel? Then why not a virtual field trip? The Web provides the resources; you provide the fun. Every day is a beautiful day for a virtual field trip! Included: Tips for creating your own virtual field trips!

This obviously is geared for the classroom, but I think taking a virtual field trip (VFT) would be fun for anyone!

This article has lots of links to existing VTFs!

One of the links directs you to Tramline where you can visit lots of places virtually or create your own field trip to share with others. They also have an interesting article on VFTS vs. WebQuests.

I created a WebQuest on the Industrial Revolution in my Technology for Instruction course this past spring. If you visit this WebQuest, please keep in mind that it is still a work-in-progress. I am intrigued by the idea of VFTs and will definitely explore this further.

What are you waiting for? Go EXPLORE!

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What cool tech tools are you using today?

Tech Tuesday: Prezi

I recently learned about Prezi in my technology course last semester. I like to describe it has PowerPoint on steroids. I believe they market it as the only zooming presentation tool. The zooming feature makes boring slide presentations come alive with movement. On their home page, there is a great video introducing you to this tool, if you're unfamiliar with it.

I created a couple Prezi presentations for my class last semester. Overall, I found that it was really user-friendly. For someone who tends to be a bit of a perfectionist, it can, however, be a little trying. There is no real good way to get text to line up perfectly, so the more abstract thinker will probably enjoy this tool a little better than someone a bit more concrete. It did teach me to try and let some of those things go. Once I was able to do that, I really came to enjoy this software!

There are a few other quirks, but they have a great Learn section and manual to help you along your way. There is also a showcase where you can look at presentations created by others. Some are even available for reuse, which means you can save a copy to your page and edit it to fit your needs or topics. How great is that?!

Here are a couple of Prezis that I've enjoyed. They are particularly related to education/teaching.

Thoughts on Using Prezi as Teaching Tool by Paul Hill

Playing to Learn by Maria Andersen

Here are the two Prezis I created for my class.

This first one is the first that I created. I'm taking an independent study course on Environmental Studies right now, so I created this to help me understand and learn more about Natural Selection. As a future teacher, I could use this in my classroom to help students understand this Theory as well.

Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Ok. One more, and I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled day. :-)

This Prezi I created as part of my final project in my technology course. My idea was to begin a unit with a timeline that showed specifics events. I would then break the class into groups and have each group choose (or perhaps I would assign) an event on the timeline to elaborate one. Each group would then collaborate on that topic and add it to the class Prezi. I've created an example of what an elaboration might look like. I'd be willing to bet that my students would be far more insightful and creative than I was!

Early Civilization in Afroeurasia to 450 BCE

I tried to embed these presentation, but they didn't look so good on my blog.

Tech Tuesday: Flashcard Machine

Here's a great online tool I found -- especially for the end of the year as finals are approaching.

Flashcard Machine

This is great for students, teachers, or really anyone who wants to create nice and easy flashcards. It's free to sign-up and use.

• You can create all kinds of flashcard sets.
• You can study multiple sets at a time. For example, if you'd created a set for each chapter or unit, then you could combine them to study for a comprehensive final.
• You can collaborate with others in creating and/or studying your sets.
• You can include images and audio.
• Sets can be printed for offline studying.
• You can search the public flashcard database for interesting topics to expand your knowledge base.
• There's even an ipod app.

Let me know what you think about this site. Would you ever use it or suggest it to a student or teacher you know?

What do you think?

Here is a video about what students say about technology in their classrooms:


Students Sound Off on School Tech Use from Education Week on Vimeo.

What do you think? Should schools adopt more technology into their classrooms? Should students be able to access the Internet outside of the library? Should they have access to web-based email programs (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) at school?

How is technology used in your children's classrooms? Is it embraced by the students and teachers? Is the available technology being used? For example, a few of the students in this video stated that there were Smartboards in a few of the classrooms, but the teachers rarely used them.

I look forward to embracing technology when I become a teacher. I feel that students will learn more when they are engaged, and using technology can be that tool to help grab their interest.

Did You Know?

I love these videos. I'm not sure in which education course I was shown the first one, but I remember it was quite powerful.


I'm currently taking a technology integration course at the University of St Thomas. My professor sent us a link to an updated version of this video. The questions near the end of the video really resonated with me. Is education where it needs to be to prepare our children for the 21st century workplace?



A few days later, my professor sent out another link to an even more updated version. I recognize there are a lot of redundancies in these videos, but there are enough changes to really make you realize just how quickly technology is changing.