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Monday, March 10, 2008

Journal #5


“Making Field Trips Podtastic” by Aliece Weller, John Bickar, and Paul McGuinness. Learning and Leading, March/April 2008.

This article documents a new trend in fieldtrips that uses new technological experiences to enhance the learning of children on fieldtrips. It begins by following Jay as he visits the Boston Museum of Science using a mix of podcasts, student multimedia creation, Web research and interviewing to enhance his learning experience. The article goes on to mention how these tools can help students enhance their understanding of students by making the fieldtrips more hands on. They also allow the students work together and to take the fieldtrip home with them by taking digital photos and keeping a web journal that they will have access to once they leave the museum.
Although this technology is not accessible in any other museum yet, the authors predict that this technology could be easily incorporated into other museum programs, after-school and neighborhood programs and even just for student’s personal use.

Questions:

1. Does this technological experience of a museum take away from the human-ness of the experience?
– It seems that part of the interesting parts of going to a museum or another educational venue is having first hand stories told by a person. Although these could be relayed electronically, it seems possible that we may lose some of the human connection when we allow students to do most of their learning digitally.
2. What provisions will the museums or educators make for students who have less access to this technology at home and may struggle with it’s newness in a museum setting?
– It is always important to remember that students do not have the same resources at home as each other. Provisions should be made to make sure that the students are on the same level when they present the information, or at least make allowances for those who are less technologically inclined.

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