Global Teacher Connect

I have a confession to make.  I have not taken my kids on one field trip all year.  Almost daily, my students ask to go on field trips, but we have not gone.  It’s not that there weren’t any available to me, or that the students couldn’t have paid for the trips – it’s simply that I chickened out!  This has been my first year here in Morocco, and in addition to learning the school system, I have been learning French and Arabic.  I am sure that I could’ve figured out how to get my students to a bank for a field trip during our study of banks, but could I have explained to the bank tellers what I wanted the kids to know?  Could I have understood the explanation the bank tellers would have given us?  Ummmmm……probably not.

Next year, I hope to be able to brave the system, but this year I chose to “bring the field trips to us” instead, using virtual experiences.  Here are some of the virtual experiences we used in lieu of field trips:

For our animal unit:  National Zoo Web Cam

For our bank unit:  Coinland

For our neighborhood unit: Community Helper WebQuest

 

Have you ever used virtual field trips?  How do they help you in your classroom?  What actual field trips have you taken this year?