Field Trips at Your Fingertips! episode 2

Google Expeditions is a virtual reality program that allows teachers to take students on immersive field trips. Teachers can choose from a variety of expeditions, such as exploring the ocean or touring historical landmarks. Students can join the expedition by simply clicking a button. This program enhances learning by providing real-life context and engaging all types of learners. It is a cost-effective and captivating way to explore the world. Hello and welcome back to Field Trips at Your Fingertips. This episode is hosted by Kira and today we're going to be talking about Google Expeditions. Google Expeditions is a way to bring lessons to life by immersing students directly into the setting of their content. It creates a path to bring places and experiences to your students without having to travel in real life. There's a great blog I found by teacher Brittany Washburn through Pinterest and she explains how to download and use Google Expeditions. First you have to pay for the expedition kit and download it. Then you can go to the choose to lead tab and you have your choice of countless expeditions you can take your students on. Once you've chosen an expedition you press play and on the student end they just have to click join expedition and you can begin your journey. It's that easy. The ideas for expeditions are endless. In a science lesson about the ocean you can take a trip to the deep sea and explore zones of the seafloor and even watch sea animals in their habitat. Or if you're reviewing biology and anatomy you can take students through the human body in a magic school bus kind of way. For a history lesson you can choose trips from around the world maybe to see the seven wonders of the world or visit a new country if you're teaching a language. I watched a TED Talk recently about using Google Expeditions. The host of this episode showed a video of the team working on expeditions explaining their goal. In the video they asked children if they could go anywhere in the world where would they go. The children answered with various places and things they wanted to experience. One teacher said it best you want to be able to show the kids something outside of your community that you can go to and learn from and that there's other places that you can visit. It allowed us to go somewhere where we normally wouldn't be able to go. How much more enriching than just showing them a picture or having them read about it. I think this quote perfectly describes what Google Expeditions is all about. It gives context and brings real life into what students are reading about. It is very convenient and a perfect way to help your students understand the content they are learning. It's great for all kinds of learners. VR brings auditory, visual, and kinesthetic aspects to students who are already learning through the typical read and write method. Personally I would have loved something like this growing up. In elementary school we would take field trips but they didn't always relate directly to what we were learning in class. They were more fun than educational because they didn't connect back to the content of our lessons. For example we went to zoos or museums but there's so much to see and do at these places. The actual educational part tends to get lost in the sea of other people and the thought of being in a new and unfamiliar place. As we got older we went on field trips less and less even though the content got more complex. Participating in a virtual reality field trip would have helped enhance the things we were learning and give a greater chance of deeper comprehension. Google Expeditions can be used in all grades across all subjects. It is a very immersive and engaging way to encourage curiosity and exploration in students. It has so many benefits for teachers, students, administration, and even parents. It is a cost effective and great way to explore our world in a new captivating way. A way that we never could have imagined using before the introduction of VR in a classroom setting. This episode was recorded and edited by Kira Linsky. I'd like to thank Brittany Washburn, Alex Faborg, and the Google Expeditions team for sharing their knowledge on this topic. I use the Educator ITSE Standards 2.3b, Evaluate Resources for Credibility Under Citizen, 2.4a, Collaborate with Colleagues Under Collaboration, and 2.4a, Collaborate with 2.4a, Collaborate with Colleagues Under Collaborator, and 2.5a, Design Authentic Learning Activities Under Designer to help support this content. Thanks for listening.