Capturing Field Trip Learning with Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have changed the way education is happening in my classroom and my school. But,  there has always been a step back when we take students out of the classroom to do learning on a field trip.  We don't have the same tools, the same space or the same learning experiences.  But this was the case even with early technology, teachers and students often didn't like taking pencils and notebooks either.  Taking the devices has been an area of concern on a few levels; losing devices, lack of internet connections in museums or outdoor spaces and how to connect students' learning on the field trip and stay within the device capabilities and the teacher's objectives.

A few years ago, Jennie Magiera and Anita Huffman created Keynote slide decks for students that were used as a template for students to filled in information.  Anita used these with science experiments and Jennie and I used them on a field trip.   I decided to create a mashup of the Museum of Science and Industry's m.stories  and Keynote features to create a slide deck for my students as they explored the museum last week.

I used slides with pictures and bullet points and used some sentence starters from the m.stories like, "This reminds me of..." or "I never knew that..." and placed those in the Keynote bullet points.  I titled the slide for the area I wanted the students to record the information and a space for a picture from that area as well as the prompt for the group's ideas and thinking.  Students had two exhibits I required, but then I created generic slides titled, "Museum Location" for them to change if they were exploring another areas.  I also included the prompts: connections, wonderings and interesting thoughts.

This Keynote creation was one they had to collaborate with the other members of their group, share ideas and thinking and capture learning through words and images.  Viewing the work allowed me to  experience what the students did in their group, even though I was only with 10 of the 60 students I teach for science and math.  They were able to view each others and make connections and have conversations after we returned because they were able to capture their learning using the devices.

The most improved part of the experience for me was the workflow.  I was able to create the Keynote template slides on my Mac and place them into my courses on Schoology.  My students were easily able to access the slides, open on their iPad Keynote and then submit the finished Keynote back as an assignment on Schoology.  (The students had to access and open in keynote and upload to Schoology AT school, the museum is still not wi-fi friendly.)  The final step is for me to share the files through Schoology as an course update with the file attached for students to view other group's work!

Here are some samples of the students' keynotes: