Saturday, September 24, 2011

Experience The Trip With Us!

At the end of last year, I wrote a post on my professional blog about "giving the students control," and how amazed I was by what one student did when he wrote about our whole trip during the field trip itself. Through some replies by others, I commented about how great it would be if the students had iPod Touches or cameras to record their learning on the trip. I thought that I would give this a try on our first field trip of the year to the Ancaster Fair. I'm so glad that I did!

My class was divided into three groups of six with two parent volunteers in each group. I gave each group an iPod Touch or a flipcam to take pictures and record videos showing what they saw, did, and learned throughout the trip. I was amazed by the results! When we got back to the school, I realized that I received over 200 photographs and over 60 videos throughout our four hour field trip. Incredible!

What I love the most is that the majority of these photographs and videos were recorded by students. They were documenting their own learning. They were watching closely, reflecting on what they were seeing, and engaging in meaningful discussions with others. As I watched the videos, I heard students inferring and I saw students problem-solving. I love that! It's not about the quality of the video, but what that video captured. I only wish that I tried an activity like this one a long time ago.























For other educators reading this post, have you ever tried this before? What were the results? For parents and students reading this post, what do you think looks like the most exciting activity? Why?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on our trip to the fair!
Aviva

10 comments:

MrsMcV said...

Thanks for sharing your amazing trip! The videos were so fun to watch! I especially loved the piglets and the busker on the unicycle! The grade 1 kids were very cute too!

I can't wait for our next class trip to Crawford Lake. We will be taking iPod touches along to document all the learning and fun that will take place!

Aviva said...

Thanks for your comment! I hope that you'll share the videos from your field trip too. I think that the iPod Touches are great for capturing learning on a trip!

Aviva

Anonymous said...

I had so much fun at the ancaster fair! Thank you! Love Casey

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Carlyn Shewchuk said...

I loved the videos and plan to show some of them to my students Saskatchewan. I enjoy reading your blog and getting ideas of things to do in my own classroom. I am slowly becoming more techy... Thank you for everything you do!

Anonymous said...

I had fun with my groop and I had fun at the Ancaster fair. I tuck a lot of picktyers. Love Madison

Aviva said...

Thanks fo your comments, Madison and Casey! I'm so glad that you had fun at the fair. I love all of the pictures you took too! What did you like best about the fair?

Love,
Miss Dunsiger

Aviva said...

Thanks Carlyn! I'm so glad you liked this post and are going to share some of our videos with your class too. My students will be so excited!

Aviva

Gill-Ville said...

This is fantastic Aviva! I love it. I have a "daily photographers" job as one of my class "tech jobs". The students who have that role are in charge of the camera and what gets captured that day. The only requirement or rule is that they capture special moments and learning that occurs. They also are responsible for uploading them to our classroom computer at the end of the day. We date each "event" in iPhoto so we can find them or refer to them later. It also helps when we want to find them for other projects such as inserting into blogs. The next step is to teach them how to put them on our class flickr site (that parents have access to) and mark them as either private or public (I can't show student faces in public online spaces). I am always curious of other board's policies surrounding this.

Aviva said...

Thanks for your comment! I love the daily photographer job. I have students take photographs throughout the day, but not as a special job.

As for our Board's policy, we can upload photographs as long as the photo permission forms are signed. It's neat to hear about other boards' policies too.

Aviva