Kathy Johnson
Apollo
High School
St. Cloud, MN
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Kathy
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Travel Web Pages: A Way to Capture Travel
Traveling with students is like riding a roller-coaster from start to finish-all
the planning, the fundraising, the phone calls, the build up to the big
departure, slowly but surely . . . and then the thrill of the trip! Whether
the adventure lasts a weekend or a week, it creates memories for a lifetime.
Upon arriving home, pictures are shared, some laughs are had, and you move
on. With so much invested in this experience, how could you take it one
step further and capture it permanently? Through creating a travel web
page while you are on the field trip!
A travel web page has numerous options for matching your technology skill
and comfort level to the amount of time you would like to spend on the
project during the trip. Consider the following guiding questions, prepared
by an experienced school trip teacher/chaperone and travel web page creator:
- Will you have Internet access on a regular basis?
- Will you create your web page from your travel location, or is it
possible to identify a colleague in your home district to create the
web page from your group's stories and photos?
- Will you be able to carry and use a laptop computer during the trip?
- When traveling, will you have time every day to complete a journal
entry or story?
- Who will be the audience you hope to share this web page with?
- Will your web page be used as a learning tool, or simply as a trip
summary experience?
- Who will be writing and editing the content?
- Once back home, what enhancements could be added to the page to
continue the learning experience?
Here are a few ideas to generate thought and discussion with students:
- Assign books about the region visited.
- Explore various cultural aspects in depth, such as food. Take pictures
of food items while traveling and compile recipes and cooking web sites
to accompany them.
- Create a discussion forum for students to continue exchanging ideas.
- Add audio clips of some of the local music students heard while
traveling.
- Scan mementos such as menus, currency, ticket stubs, and other authentic
artifacts collected along the way.
Creating a travel web site while en route will encourage students to think
about their learning experience on a much deeper level. Even if you don't
publish their writing to a web page until your return, the writing done
on-site will capture the excitement of the travel experience. The suggested
follow-up activities provide students with the opportunity to synthesize
their experience, and to reflect on cultural similarities and differences.
Whether students are visiting another city, state, country, or continent,
the travel web page will become a virtual field trip to experience time
and again.
Note: While this is a dynamic project for students of all ages and
ability levels, it was submitted by a teacher of Deaf and Hard of Hearing
students. The Internet facilitated and enhanced student communication with
each other and with their peers worldwide. |
