If you have been following my blog lately, you will know that I am absolutely (and probably ridiculously!!! ) obsessed with virtual field trips. I promise I will blog about something different soon but I have one last thing. I have been working on organizing all the field trips I find into one sheet and I was just able to make it into a searchable database!
So search away and make some connections! Let me know if you take any of these field trips! I would love to hear how others are using them in their classrooms!!!
This list is ever growing so bookmark this and keep coming back when you are planning next year!
Hey all! Now that I have been in my new job for a bit, I have sooooooo much to share with you. My job is super fantastic! I spend my days traveling to schools teaching teachers and students how to use Google Classroom, Green Screen videos, iMovie, podcasting and more!
My favorite part of the job is bringing kiddos from my fabulous district all around the world with virtual field trips.
I have taken the DEEP dive into virtual field trips. Some may even call it an obsession but I adore the fact that I can introduce my students to experts and places all over the world. My favorite experience right now is Wild Safari Live! OMG! This is amazing! Wild Safari Live is a game changer. It is a live feed of an actual safari from the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. You can watch the live feed every day from 9:30 - 12:30 and 12:00 to 3 am eastern. You can watch the live feed at http://www.wildsafarilive.com/ or Youtube Live. On the safari, you have 3 rangers traveling throughout the reserve looking for amazing animals and answering questions from Twitter using #safarilive. But the excitement does not stop there! Thanks to an AMAZING educator, Erik Moore who is an Instructional Technology Specialist for Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, Wild Safari Live is a teacher's dream! Erik worked with Wild Safari Live to save the first hour of the sunset broadcast (the morning broadcast here in North America) for student questions only. Three schools can sign up daily (Click here if you would like to sign yourself up!) and get to monopolize the questions for the first hour. Teachers submit their questions through the message option in Skype and the absolutely best part about it is they speak directly to the students and post their question and name on the screen!
The kids absolutely freak when they see their names on the screen and love it when the rangers personally talk to them!
I have conducted about 15 safaris so far, from grades 1 - 8, and it has been amazing. I have seen giraffes, impala, rhinos, elephants, tortoises, lions, cheetahs, hyenas, eagles, and more! If you are interested in exploring this, check out the following resources!
1) Read a great blog about what Erik Moore has done for us right here!
2) Email Erik at exmooore@vbschools.com for materials and ideas.
3) Follow Erik on Google Plus at Erik Moore and on Twitter @ITS_LHS_Erik
3) Click here for resources I have put together for the experience!
4) Here is a great video that describes the safari experience:
Watch this clips to see one of my kiddo's questions being answered. How cool is this?
Lastly, click here to check out my experiences with Wild Safari and other virtual field trips I'll be discussing in the coming weeks! As always feel free to contact me at twitter @kwilkinstchr!
Hey all and happy almost New Year! I feel like I am always apologizing for not writing but this time I have some really good excuse! After 19 years of classroom teaching I have moved out of the classroom! On December 5th I started a new job as a District Technology Integration Specialist! My new job is sooooooo cool! I work with 2 other wonderful people and we travel around our very large district (over 15 schools!!!) helping teachers take technology risks in their classrooms and helping students use technology to increase their learning. It is amazing!!!!
Everyone keeps asking me if I miss being with kids everyday but the wonderful thing about my job is I am with them. I have already spent time helping newcomer ELL students create Google presentations on their home countries and cultures and the other day I spent the entire day teaching 3rd and 4th graders at my son's and daughter's school how to use Google Classroom. My son was soooo proud of me!
Sooooooo, since it is the end of the year, I would like to focus on my 5 favorite technology tools and trends of 2016.
1) Virtual Reality
I've gushed about it before but I absolutely looooove the infancy of virtual reality in the classroom! There aren't even a ton of things out there right now so I can't even imagine how much this is going to grow.
My kiddos absolutely love Google Cardboard, Google Street View, and especially Google Expeditions!
We had Google into my school and it was such an amazing experience. If you haven't tried it yet, you have to!!!
Using Google Street View you can travel to a ton of place all over the world. If you have a tablet, a phone, and some VR cardboard or googles, you might want to use the Google Expeditions app. This allows you to help your students take tours. Here is a link to all the Expedition tours that are currently offered: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uwWvAzAiQDueKXkxvqF6rS84oae2AU7eD8bhxzJ9SdY/edit#gid=0
2) Connecting Classrooms
I have always been a fan of book buddies, mentors, and peer tutors. Before the dawn of Skype and Google Hangouts this connections were limited to our own schools. If you haven't tried connecting to a class, please do it in 2017. As an educator, I found it so empowering.
You don't have to connect over anything huge. You might share poetry with another third grade class, or you might talk about the characters in Maniac Magee.
One of the fun ways to connect is to conduct a Mystery Google Hangouts. We love using our critical thinking and geography schools in such a real world way and we really love making connections with our students across the country! Click here to check out how to do this in your classroom! If you are looking for easy ways to connect to other classrooms, click here!
3) Virtual Field Trips
Ok! I have not been quiet about this at all! I am OBSESSED with virtual field trips! I work in a small urban district where a majority of my kids would be considered to live in the poverty level. We do not have enough money to get out of our classrooms and give the kiddos experiences. The thing is, my kids need these experiences the most. They need to see what the world has to offer them! I have thrown myself into this new passion with a vengeance!!!
So far, I have taken students from 2nd - 8th grade on a trip to Plymouth Plantation, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and Komodo National Park. My students have learned about different cultures by having a live conversation with a fabulous woman from South Africa.
My favorite places to go for virtual field trips is Learn Around the World and Microsoft Educators Network. To help you all out, though, I am in the process of making a database of tons of free field trips you can take your students on. Click here to look at my growing list of over 300 opportunities for your students to connect with places and experts for FREE!
Here is an example of one of our field trips!
4) Google Sites
About two months ago, I had a colleague ask me what a teacher should use to help kids create a website for class. I showed them Wix and Weebly and they asked what I thought about Google Sites. Bleh! Google Sites was clunky, ugly, and not very intuitive. I hated that it wasn't integrated with the rest of my GSuite platform.
Weirdly enough, two weeks after this conversation Google totally revamped the entire platform and it is AMAZING! Sites can be created off of your Google Drive account, the drag and drop is ridiculously easy, and the formatting is so simple! Click here and check out a website I'm still working on.
5) Fun Data Collection
When it comes to formative assessment, things keep getting more fun! If you are looking for an engaging way to assess kids there are tons of great things out there right now. Some of my favorites are Kahoot, Quizzizz, and Plickers. Students love all these tools and have no idea they are even being assessed. During one of my virtual field trips, my students took a final assessment with over 400 other students across the U.S. and even a class in Mexico. How cool is that?
So... what were your favorite tech trends, apps, or websites of 2016? Let me know in the comments and feel free to contact me if you would like to be a guest blogger about something techy you've been using in your classroom!
I can't believe the school year has been in full swing for over a month and I haven't had the opportunity to blog yet. Life has been CRAZY!
First, I have an awesome and amazing student teacher that started the year with me and will end his internship in the late fall. It has been a wonderful experience mentoring a new teacher and helping him find his style. What I love most is that he loooooooves to ENGAGE the kids. It's a win!
So? What cools things have I been doing in my classroom! I'm still on a roll when it comes to flattening my classroom. This means that I am trying to push down the walls and connect my amazing kiddos with the big wide world. On of the things that has been helping me with this is Learn Around the World!
This website and service is amazing! It is run by Brandon Hall and he does all the work for you! He makes connections with people all throughout the world and then hosts talks with people and shows us footage from their trips. He does a couple of different types of shows:
The Geo Show Junior for grades K-4
The Geo Show for grades 5-8
Meet a Local for grades K-8
My kiddos and I did a Meet a Local and got to learn all about South Africa from an amazing young woman named Michelle!
Michelle told us all about South African lifestyle, food, animals, and family life. She spent some time teaching them South African slang and Afrikaans! My kiddos joined with two second grade classes across the country to ask Michelle questions about South Africa. At the end of the experience (which was the quickest hour ever!!!) Brandon had the kids play a Kahoot! based on the information given in the talk.
This experience was sooooo easy! I had to download some webinar software, click on it at the given time, and for the next hour I got to sit back and watch my kids learn, interact, communicate, and think critically!
It has been soooooo long so I've talked to you all and I have so much to share. Right now, though, this Mama is preparing for a school week so the lunches and laundry are calling. I was able to carve out some creation time and made this super fun Salem Witch Trials Game and Simulation! Head on over to my store and check it out!
