Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Complete Package

As an administrator one of the most satisfying parts of the job is seeing teachers collaborate willingly on interdisciplinary lessons. This type of learning is extremely important in terms of providing students with connections between the content areas in order to provide a heightened sense of relevance and understanding. I was excited to learn last week about an activity that was being planned for a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. New Milford High School teachers April Millian (math) and Lisette Morel (art) approached me about creating a scavenger hunt podcast activity for the students to complete while visiting the museum. This idea fascinated me as we all know that certain field trips do not have an adequately embedded learning activity for the students to complete. After receiving my approval, April and Lisette created their podcast using a macbook and then uploaded it to iPod nanos from the school's mobile iPod learning lab. Each student was then issued an iPod upon arrival to the MET and off they went.

In addition to the iPods, my teachers also took a Kodak Zi8 with them to document the learning experience on this field trip.  This activity illustrates how to successfully create an interdisciplinary lesson and integrate technology in order to ensure that students are actively engaged while on a field trip.  It should be noted that this is the first time my two teachers have not only used the iPods, but created a podcast of this nature.  As I have stated in previous posts, taking risks is essential in order to spur innovation and change.  I commend  teachers like April and Lisette who are willing to move beyond their comfort zone in order to make learning engaging, lasting, and most importantly fun!

6 comments:

  1. WOW! What an innovative and creative use of technology to engage students! How were you able to fund the purchase of ipods and related hardware? I know students would LOVE this type of activity at our school but funding is a serious hurdle. Do you ever "lose" ipods? Having an administrator who supports innovative risks is essential. Just like we tell our students: we can't let our fear of failure stop us from trying new things!

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  2. This is a very exciting use of ipod technology. I love hearing about creative applications like this...it gets one's own creativity flowing. I recently experimented with the use of MP3 players in a special education role- elementary (uploading phonics videos, both YouTube and also student/teacher created out of Powerpoint for students to review during lang. centres). I have faced mixed reaction from other staff re: this experimentation. Not everyone has understood 'my vision'; some thought I was 'jumping on the tech bandwagon'. The comfort zone re: tech (beyond the one (old) PC per class) in schools isn't fully there yet...Bravo to those 2 teachers! And I love the mobile ipod cart! serttech.edublogs.org @julieejohnsonn

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  3. Nice job! What a great way to make an otherwise "regular fieldtrip" so much more memorable! Great job stepping out of the box and clearly raising the bar!

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  4. What a fantastic idea to help kids explore the museum a little deeper and help them pull prior knowledge from the classroom into a real world setting. Great work on pushing the field trip experience to a new level! www.theteachingpalette.com

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  5. Thanks for including the link to the equipment utilised. I have saved this tonight to check at work tomorrow and highlight the hardware to others at school. Cheers, Glenys

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  6. In response to M.E. I funded the iPods with $10,000 I received for the school as a result of my participation on a reality show called "The Principal's Office" which aired on TruTV. We have not lost any iPods as we have a pretty good established protocol in place for when the teachers sign them out for use. Earphones are another story :)

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