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:

Equalize Our Education!

My students have just wrapped up a unit on examining education and the story of equity. They first went back into the past of public education and created a timeline of major equity and equality events in education. They heard for the first time about how schools were set up at a local level, when the Freedmen's Bureau started black schools after slavery ended, when schools were integrated by the Supreme Court and then in the real world with the story of the Little Rock Nine, they moved into the 1970s and learned about Title XI and the Disabilities Act. This lead us into the more present day story of education. I wanted to make the context personal and also continue on our exploration of equity in education. Thanks to my amazing teaching partners our students have explore equity is a variety of formats and context.

The students examined the choices offered by their own school system, Chicago Public Schools. Many did not know the choices they had beyond attending a neighborhood high school, as they all attend a neighborhood elementary school. After determining the many choices and options, they then began to notice not only the difference in type and enrollment requirements but the drastic differences in graduation rates, attendance rates, test scores, demographics and special programs offered by the different schools. There were many comments around the exploration of schools from the amazing special programs from sports to the arts and rigorous advanced placement programs at some the best schools and the disappointment at the limited options offered at some neighborhood and smaller schools. The students worked with partners to create "school profiles" using a keynote slide, researching the statistics and adding a photo of the school.

More important than the technology and great slides they took a look for the first time what their choices and their futures as Chicago Public School students could and would be in a few short years. We had a very revealing conversation about what aspects they "wanted" in a high school, what would be equitable in a high school and many of them came to the realization that only a handful of the high schools in our city offer those to students, and even more worrisome those were the schools that were the most selective and hardest to gain entry into. It seems my students came a conclusion that finding the right school for what they want did not always mean they were able to attend it. Which begs the question of our unit, is this system equitable? Is this providing a fair and free education to all?

One thing I do know is by providing my students access to the information and having them examine it critically I think they see the importance of equity and how far we still need to go to have a better version of it in our local school system. They realize that some of the inequity starts with access to the pertinent information to make an informed decision. They have realized the true impact of education both formal and informal when it comes to their own lives. I am so proud of their work, see it here!


We have a QR map created to share with our community: