Final Blog

 Virtual Field Trips are great tools for the Elementary classroom. They allow for the students to explore places in the world they may never have the opportunity to visit or explore subjects that are not particularly exciting in a fun, engaging way. The way the trips are created force the students to be actively involved in their learning, clicking through the slides to travel to the next destination or waiting for the animation to phase out and for the next slide to appear. The Virtual Field Trips can be intricate and detailed, but they are easily created through the use of the tool Power Point.

Virtual Field Trip completely changed my outlook on the use of Power Point. I now have a newfound love for the tool and swear to myself to never create another slide show with facts bulleted on a fancy repetitive background again, ever. Power Point, surprisingly offers many features that allow for interactive presentations, many of which my teachers had never taken advantage of in their classrooms. Some of the features I had used to enhance the traveling experience in my Virtual Field Trip included:

            Custom backgrounds

            Use of cartoon characters

            Photo editing tools, ex- removing the background of an image
            Animations- rippling pages, making chat bubbles appear and disappear making it
                        seem like the characters are speaking with each other.

With a combination of those four features, I was able to create custom slides, by taking bits and pieces from larger images to create the scene I desired. As mentioned above the animations allow characters to seem as though they are speaking with the students and traveling with them through the trip.

The photo to the right is a slide from the virtual field trip I created. The virtual field trip allows the students to travel through the depths of the ocean with the characters from SpongeBob Squarepants. The students explore a marine ecosystem along with briefly visiting the two other ecosystems, freshwater and terrestrial. Sandy Cheeks is the character on the rights, with animations she appears and disappears and then reappears on top of the mountain, making the students feel as though they are traveling into the photo of the terrestrial ecosystem because the next slide is the photo enlarged with Sandy still on top of the mountain. The student is able to "travel" and "explore" while learning.


The "experiential" learning attached with the virtual field trips is a great asset to the classroom, an asset that will definitely be apart of my future lessons. The slides force the students to take ownership of their learning while exploring the subject of the virtual field trip. The differentiated presentation of the information allows multiple different students to access the information and understand the content. The students take directions from the characters to their next destination. Also it allows the students to access the information at any time, eliminating the age old excuse of "forgetting" or "losing" the paper with all of the information. The virtual field trips are also a great use as hooks for major projects during the semester to get the students excited for the project, rather than dreading the work that is presented on a spare piece of black and white paper.

The video will help further understand the importance of the virtual field trips. It describes the trips the students take, how they are able to expand their learning beyond their own small world and create global leaders. The students will be able to explore worlds they may never be able to explore in real life. The video also explains software used to create the virtual field trips.