Journal 5

Making Field Trips Podtastic! Use of Handheld Wireless Technology Alleviates Isolation & Encourages Collaboration, Aliece M. Weller, John C. Bickar, & Paul McGuinness, Learning & Leading with Technology, Volume 35, Number 6, March/April 2008

Imagine knowing that your students have learned all that it is possible to learn on their next field trip to the museum. Imagine also that you have instant assessments available to prove that they have learned the information available throughout the museum's exhibits. Well, you can stop imagining. Several students from the Harvard School of Education have created podcasts to use on handheld computers to enhance the field trip experience. These are interactive podcasts that allow digital photos and videos to be taken, audio interviews to be recorded, notes to be recorded, additional information to be accessed via the internet and assessments to be made before the student can go on to the next exhibit.

Their initial field tests with students show that the students increase their time on each exhibit, getting the full benefit of that exhibit and increase the amount of depth of engagement with each exhibit.

Question: When will this be available to the general public and when can I gain access to them for my students?

Answer: I would like to find out how to go about getting this for our school. We have ample funds, and it would be such a great tool for every grade. What an awesome concept. I will try to contact the authors, and give a copy of this article to our IT person.

Question: Would this be difficult for teachers to program according to each classroom's needs?

Answer: The authors give the technological guidelines and tools necessary to create this awesome tool. They state that is user-friendly and simple for the teachers to program.