Virtual+Field+Trips

Tips for a successful field trip:

1. Make sure field trip is tied to your content area and is relevant to what you are studying in class. 2. Even though you are in the walls of your own classroom, you still need to play the part of facilitator and/or guide. 3. Make sure you plan ahead: 4. Enforce a time limit. 5. Decide whether the field trip will be whole class or completed in small groups. 6. Inform parents about your field trip and have a signed permission slip.
 * Provide an intro lesson giving some background knowledge.
 * Preview all sites and links to make sure they work and that there is no inappropriate content.
 * Provide students with a graphic organizer to collect information on their trip.
 * Give students direction on what they need to do, find, see, remember.
 * Have a culminating activity for students to complete to share what they have learned.

Do NOT -
 * Set students free on the web with no guidance or expectations
 * Present a field trip without previewing it first.
 * Stop at the end of the field trip - make sure you follow up with an extended learning activity for students to make connections with the trip and the content .

[|Jog the Web] [|Fur.ly] - shorten multiple urls into one [|Stixy] - [|Wallwisher]

Additional Links and Resources:

[|Get Outta Class with Virtual Field Trips] - Article from Education World that contains some great links to virtual field trips.

[|Field Trips] - A collection of field trips from Tramline

[|Museum Field Trips] - Great list of links to various museums from Education World

[|Innovative Teaching] - Site from Walter McKenzie that contains a huge list of Virtual Field Trips

[|Making Teachers Nerdy] - HUGE collection of webcams

[] More Links: [|Africam] Civil War Animated [|Louvre Museum] [|Monterey Bay Aquarium] [|Museum of Unnatural Mystery] [|NASA] [|National Gallery of Art] [|National Museum of History] - online exhibitions[|Nine Planets Tour] [|Reefs of the Gulf] [|School Improvement in Maryland] [|Smithsonian National Zoo] [|Virtual Hawaii] [|The White House] [|Willamsburg, Virginia] - Explore the Universe