Project Description

The digital field trip is exactly what it sounds like: you plan a "field trip" that students experience entirely through the computer. The project includes:

1) A digital field trip tool: usually created with Google Slides, PowerPoint, Prezi, or you could even use Google Sites or Weebly.

2) A commentary explaining all the educational choices you made when designing the digital field trip.

​For this project, if you would like to find a group of like-minded individuals with whom to work, you are more than welcome to do so.

What needs to be turned in?

1. Your digital field trip:
   1. If this is Prezi, Slides, or any web-based software, this will be a simple hyperlink.
   2. If you use PowerPoint, chances are you'll need to save it to a jump drive (both OnCourse and Google Classroom have upload size limits.)
2. One written commentary (preferably as a shared Google Document, but any digital submission is fine.)

​If your links are shared with me correctly, all three links will be published in your commentary itself, so really, all you're turning in is a commentary with linked assignments included.

How will my project be graded?

Here is the project rubric that will be used to grade your project. Basically, the points breakdown works to: ​

Digital Tools and Experience

33%

Presentation

17%

Overall Quality

17%

Commentary Quality

33%

**rounded to the nearest tenth of a point

Project is worth 20% of overall course score.

Digital Field Trip Software

Slides

Slides is the presentation software I strongly recommend using for this project. It has many of the same features as PowerPoint. It's interface is familiar,  you can save it in "presentation" mode so that viewers aren't encumbered by tools to which they don't have access. Possibly most importantly, it is "light." Publishing it online means that viewers don't need to download anything to interact with your field trip. It lives online and you're just viewing it. In a world in which your class content needs to compete for mobile data against cat videos, YouTube binges, and Pandora, it's best when no one needs to click a "download, 4.3 mb?" prompt.

Prezi

Prezi is an amazing presentation software for a digital field trip. In fact, I think it is the BEST presentation software for a digital field trip. The different, tiered levels you can create and the cascading, unpredictable effect of "how much can I see if I click..." mimics the reality of investigating cities on foreign continents. That being said, the interface is not user friendly, and the unpredictable effect that makes user exploration so fun makes field trip creation incredibly difficult. That being said, the final results are breathtakingly streamlined and user friendly.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful interface for connecting an audience with material. They've been at it the longest as well. That being said, all that power, and all those features come with feature bloat, and a whole lot of file size. Chances are, if you use PowerPoint to create your digital field trip, it will exceed the 10mb limit of Google Classroom and OnCourse. Large file sizes means slow load time at best. Being that PowerPoint isn't hosted online without a license, it means that only other people with your version of PowerPoint can download and see your file. To the light, web-based educator, PowerPoint's downfalls far outweigh it's advantages.

I didn't forget to link this icon or the title to the right. PowerPoint is not web-based, and as such there is no website to which I can direct you.

Pertinent, In-Class Materials for Reference:

Exemplars of Actual, 100% Human Work

Stephanie Diacovasilis

In this trip to the Buffalo Zoo [created using Prezi] you'll notice some parallel structure, so it's easy to find and interact with information. You'll notice a healthy mixture of text, images, and embedded videos. Most of all, you'll notice some fun and whimsy, which all field trips need.

Evan Ahearn

Evan's trip to Washington DC was rich in images, links, and information. While there aren't many slides, like Washington DC itself, each location offers a wealth of learning and fun.

Owen Cheeseman

This field trip, created by Owen Cheeseman, is among the most "scalable" resources I've seen in my class. He could keep adding stops and information until he could use just this field trip as a source for an amazing inquiry-based learning opportunity.

Brad Karpie (Yup, Me)

To the right (or above) you'll see the link to my own commentary and assessments that are actually differentiated for my actual 8th-grade students. I use Forms for all my assessments, so I was not creative with the software itself (also, for the purposes of an actual classroom, Plickers, Peardeck, and Kahoot! are just innately whole-class software. Their inclusion in the assignment is based on the unique tools offered in each software to spark your imagination on how to differentiate digitally in your future classroom.

Weekly plans attached to this assignment:

Click the title above or the SUPER dorky calendar to the right to visit our weekly materials page and see all the weekly plans, activities, and materials attached to this assignment in the context of the semester as a whole. 

Genuinely, if you attend class and participate in the activities, and view all the materials linked on the pages to the right, you'll have absolutely no problem producing amazing work on all our assignments.