Teaching Middle School ELA

Episode 389: 5 Easy Steps to Create a Virtual Field Trip

• Season 2 • Episode 389

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Virtual field trips don’t need to be fancy to be powerful. In today’s Teaching Middle School ELA podcast episode, I have once again, Pat from Team EB, we're walking you through five simple steps for creating a virtual field trip that actually builds skills—using nothing more than a purposeful slide deck. We’ll talk about choosing a destination, pairing it with the right reading skill, keeping it manageable, and ending with meaningful student writing. Easy to plan, engaging for students, and perfect for building background before reading.

Welcome And Mission For ELA Teachers

SPEAKER_01

Hi there, ELA teachers. Caitlin here, CEO and co-founder of EB Academics. I'm so excited you're choosing to tune into the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple: to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks, and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves, both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun, and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher digital planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs. And we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description. And in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week. Well, hello, teachers, and welcome back to another episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. I have a guest with me again today, Pat, our curriculum writer. Say hi, Pat. Hi from Snowy Buffalo. I was shocked that your kids didn't have a snow day today. No, 13 inches won't keep my kids home.

SPEAKER_02

They did have a cold day yesterday, though.

Why Virtual Field Trips Work

SPEAKER_01

It's been the wind chilled and very cold. I can only imagine. Yesterday I sat on my front porch. It was about 80 degrees in California. I was so my goodness. Yes, about 94 degrees higher than what we are. Crazy. Well, I'm glad that your kids are still able to go to school despite the crazy weather. And thank you so much for joining me again on the podcast. And today we are talking about virtual field trips. Um, so this idea actually came from Pat. She was working on a resource for one of our um, you know, for our members and our membership. And I saw it pop up in what they were working on, and I was like, oh my gosh, Pat, this will be so cool to share about on the podcast. Can you come on? And Pat so graciously said yes, of course. So we're gonna talk about virtual field trips today. Pat's gonna walk you through five easy steps to create one on your own, tell you a little bit about the one that we created at EB so that you can take this idea and run with it. Um, so a little bit about virtual field trips, first things first, is that they don't have to be fancy, right? When I originally like thought virtual field trip, I was like, oh my gosh, we're gonna be doing all kinds of work to make this happen. And that's not necessarily the case. It doesn't have to be the case. It really can just be structured as a short, purposeful slide deck that helps students navigate a topic. And you can use it to help students build any number of skills. Like you can use this in any capacity with units that you're teaching, especially Pat feel like it lends itself well to short stories and novels and things along those lines, would you say?

Inside The Extreme Weather Trip

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, for sure. In fact, the example I'm gonna give today will kind of show you how you can use this as a pre-reading activity before you start a novel or a short story.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. That's perfect. So that was my last point, which is beautiful, is that it's great for exploring background for before reading. So kind of like if you follow our lesson planning philosophy and our approach, we have like the into, the through, and the beyond. And the into is a lesson or a couple of lessons that get students really excited about what you guys are going to be learning, but then also sometimes can provide pertinent background information that they need before they start reading the text. And so that's kind of where this example of our virtual field trip comes into play. So, Pat, if you can tell our listeners a little bit about the virtual field trip that you created so they can get an idea in their mind of what this looks like, and then we'll walk them through the steps to create their own.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so the EB virtual field trip, um, first of all, just keep in mind that we are making this in-house. So ours may sound a little bit more than what you're gonna be making, and that's that's fine. We have some, you know, we have those resources, like a design team to do that. We'll walk you through how to do this on your own. Um, ours is not actually for a background for a novel, ours is more um informational reading strategies and text structures. So our teachers who are using this don't have to apply it to any particular novel. And we're actually going to be focusing on extreme weather. So if you've ever heard of something like a fire tornado, or you've probably heard of a polar vortex or heat domes, those types of things. Um, and so basically the students are gonna be taking a field trip without leaving the classroom to an extreme weather research center. And that is made up, that's not real. The information that all the students are learning will 100% be real. So basically, the students are going to um open up their Google Slides presentation. This is all gonna be done on Google Slides, and they're gonna click on different weather zones. And there's four different zones, and as they click on each one, they're going to learn about those different types of weather. Um, so they're gonna be reading articles, looking at diagrams, seeing cool images, that kind of thing as they are kind of clicking on those different zones. Um, ours will focus on text structures. So as students, though they're gonna be using like cause and effect, compare and trash, problem and solution to respond to questions. Um, and then at the end, they're going to be doing a writing assignment, a very short one, a paragraph, um, where they answer the essential question of all the weather events you have just learned about, which is the most dangerous. And so they're gonna take every, yeah, everything they learned and kind of put it into a little writing thing at the end.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, the Extreme Weather Research Center sounds like a cool place that should exist.

unknown

Yes.

Choosing Topics And Pre‑Reading Goals

SPEAKER_01

That sounds so interesting because I'm sure, you know, students hear these concepts like atmospheric river, you know, or fire tornadoes, but to learn more about them and how they exist and what they look like and to see images and diagrams, that just sounds really neat. I'm curious, Pat, what after you put the resource together, what do you think is the most dangerous one to encounter in real life?

SPEAKER_02

Oh gosh, not the fire tornadoes, actually, because those are very rare. Yeah. The chances of us actually seeing one are very, very low. I live in Buffalo, so I'll say the polar vortex. Yeah. I could probably actually encounter that. Yeah. But the uh the atmospheric rivers also cause a lot of uh flooding and snow, too. Those, those also I wouldn't want to run up against one of those either.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think we had maybe two of those last year that just pounded us in California. Yeah, it's a California thing for sure. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. It rained for a very long time. Um, cool. So that's our EB virtual field trip that we put together, and it's for teaching students tech structures, which is really interesting. So it's like tech structures could be super boring and highly unengaging, but we marry it with a virtual field trip about a super interesting topic, and now it becomes a really cool lens through which to learn this specific skill. So I love that.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so for our teachers that want to maybe do this on their own in some capacity, can you walk us through like your thought process when you created the virtual field trip so that they can kind of go through the steps and brainstorm and kind of create their own from A to Z?

Step 1: Pick The Destination

Step 2: Define The Skill

Step 3: Plan Simple Stops

Linear Slides Or Clickable Map

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So probably the teachers listening are not creating something on extreme weather. So I want to use the example of we're we'll use Hatchet just because that's such a popular book. Um, we have EB has a resource on that novel unit. Um, so let's just say, for example, if you were going to teach Hatchet, which is about a boy who ends up in the Canadian wilderness with just a hatchet. So let's say you're teaching that. This is kind of how you could come up with your own virtual field trip to help students learn what they need to know to really appreciate the story. Um, so the step one is you need to choose your destination. So in our example, we're choosing the Canadian wilderness because we're doing hatchet, and obviously, you know, basing on whatever short story or novel you'll be reading. And it could be a different time period too. It doesn't have to be modern. Maybe you're doing historical fiction. Just choose a place that makes sense for your book. Um and then step two, you're gonna decide the skill that you want your students to practice. Um, in our case, we're doing um the text structures. You could easily incorporate that in there as well. Just kind of think of like the in turn on top of what I want students to know about the background, what do what kind of writing skills and reading skills do I want them to be practicing throughout here? Think about that early on. Um so also think about like when when you're gonna be putting this together, you're probably gonna be using many different text features, like diagrams, charts. Just you don't need specifics yet, but just kind of think about like what do I want, what kinds of things do I want my students to see and experience? All right. And then step three is you're going to decide how many stops your trip is going to have because your students are going to be going to like different stops. Well, just like on a real field trip, you don't just go to the zoo and see the tiger and go home, right? You go to a couple different places. Um, but you want to keep it small. Three or four stops is plenty. Don't overwhelm yourself or your students with a million different places to go to. Um, and each stop, just focus on one aspect. So, like for ours, we're doing, we have the tornado, you know, the fire tornado zone, we have the polar vortex zone. If you were doing hatchet, you could have a wilderness area, you could have a weather area, shelter, like you could have different sections for each part. Does that make sense so far? Yep, that makes total sense. All right. So basically don't overwhelm yourself in the beginning. Um, and then you also want to think about how you want to put this together. So if you want a really straightforward experience, and if you're not technology technologically savvy and you've never done a virtual field trip before, you can just have students scroll through the slides in order. So you can literally just create Google slides, and on each slide is a different thing students are going to be reading, and they just go from top to bottom and then they're done. You could keep it that simple. Now, this part is not too hard to do if you want to. If you want to be more exploratory, you can add like a simple map or a menu slide, and the students just click on the different spots, and when they click on that spot, that takes them to that part. It could be slides you create, or it could be, I mean, you're we we're doing ours in-house, but you could easily use someone else's websites that they've already made. You could send them to a website that will teach them things. Totally, or even like a YouTube video or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, you can send them, you don't need to make all the stuff yourself. This could be a video about the Canadian wilderness and someone else made it on YouTube and you're just sending them there to watch it. Yeah, it can be that simple. Um all right, so now you're kind of you sort of you know what students want to see, what they want to experience on the trip. You're kind of you know what the format looks like. And so step four is you're going to gather and add the content that you want the students to explore. So this is where you're starting to get your photos, your short videos, diagrams, charts, whatever you want students to use. And again, you do not have to make these things. You can go out, you can find websites that have all the stuff that you want.

SPEAKER_01

And honestly, quite frankly, like to create a picture of something, like if you have a photo in your mind, you can tell ChatGPT to create the picture for you. I mean, you want to make sure that it like is if you're teaching informational text and it has to be historically or whatever accurate, you want to make sure that it's accurate. But if you want to just give them like an idea of what this might have looked like in the hatchet or whatever it might be, um, it's really helpful to use ChatGPT as an image designer too for you to do things like that, to be have very specific photos to add into your slides.

Step 4: Gather Media And Sources

SPEAKER_02

Yep. Um, and then sometimes one really good website will have everything, especially like if we're doing the Canadian wilderness, I found a really good website of Canadian Parks and it had all the provinces. Um, it doesn't say it explicitly in the book, but we think uh Hatchet takes place in Manitoba. I could just click on Manitoba and it has all this cool stuff that is. That's great. Yeah. You don't even have to leave the single website if you don't really want to. That's a perfect example. Yeah. Um, so keep each stop, each uh stop simple. So one strong image or one uh short video is usually enough for a stop. You really don't need to go crazy on it. Um, you can also add things for students to read, like short articles um or web pages with info. That's good too, because obviously we want our students to read.

SPEAKER_01

Do we want them to do that in ELA class?

SPEAKER_02

Reading's a part of one of those things that we do. Um, also keep in mind uh you can embed the images and the videos into your slides, or you can just have the students click on the links. So you decide how how I will say it's very easy. And I am not super technologically savvy. I'm pretty average when it comes to that stuff. It's so easy to click insert and find a YouTube video. Yes, put a shape in a slide, right-click, add a link, and the kids can click on it. It's yeah, yeah. And and just Google how do I embed an image in Google Slides and the instructions will come right up. So, you know, don't limit yourself. It's all pretty simple. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then the last thing I I want to say is that sometimes, depending on your topic, you can find a three six a 360-degree tour online. If you can find one of those, that really makes it cool, uh, field trip experience for students.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So it seems very easy, easy peasy so far.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, easy peasy. And I would say don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You know, don't think I have to make this the most amazing experience my students have ever had, and I need to bring in all of this technology and all of this stuff. Like just make something and you can, if the kids like it, you can add on to it later or or perfect it later, but just put it together. You'll find it's really not that hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

Keep Each Stop Focused

SPEAKER_02

I love that. And then there's one more step, right? Yes, this is the important one because this is other if you don't have this step, students are just clicking around. Right. Yeah. So the next step is you need to create some kind of a student guide for students to complete as they go through the field trip. Um, you what I I recommend having them do that on paper. So create like, you know, a handout or something that students are filling out while they're doing it. It's just easier for you to grade if you can just collect it at the end.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Um, so now that you know what the students are looking at, you can decide what you want them to record. So, for example, uh you could have students list the causes and effects or problems and solutions that they see if you're doing text structures. Um, you could have them describe what they see in a video. They could list key facts that they learned about. Um, basically just make sure that at every stop, students are doing something to show their learning as they're going through.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

Use 360 Tours And Keep It Easy

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And then do they do something at the very end? What I highly recommend at the very end is a short writing assignment because it's language arts. So we want to always incorporate some um writing. So if you were doing Hatchet, for example, you could have them write a paragraph that answers a question like, um, based on what you learned on your field trip, what would be the single most important tool for surviving the Canadian wilderness, assuming there is no cell phone signal? You always have to add that part.

SPEAKER_00

I know, right? I'm like, but the hatchets, there weren't even cell phones back then.

SPEAKER_02

Right. But this all this kind of brings it full circle because obviously the book is called Hatchet and his tool is a hatchet. Right. Yeah. Think back to, oh, when I did that field trip, I thought that whatever matches would be the most important thing, or this would be the most important thing, and kind of make connections.

Step 5: Create A Student Guide

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I love that. And it's so interesting because I think I read The Hatchet in sixth grade, it must have been. And I don't like, you know, you can only envision so much in your mind. You don't really know what the Canadian wilderness looks like, and you kind of have some idea. And so I think for a lot of our students, some of the texts that we're reading are so location-wise abstract to them that it's hard to visualize or picture it, especially like that's when I taught Shakespeare. I'd show a lot of video from, you know, especially Romeo and Juliet has so many great scenes. And so for students to be able to visualize that, I can see these field trips working in so many different instances for really helping them like holistically understand the whole picture of a text that they're going in to read, or even in the case of the one that we created, just a really fun take on text structures with extreme weather, right? Like that's such a cool angle to teach that skill. Right. Yeah. So simple steps. Step one, choose your destination. Step two, decide the skill that you want students to practice. Step three, decide how many stops you will have. Keep it simple, maybe three or four stops. Step four, gather and add the content that students will explore. And then last but not least, but most important, is make sure that you create the student guide so that you are actually holding them accountable as they work through the Eevee virtual field trip. It's awesome, Pat. Thank you so much for putting this together for our listeners. It feels so approachable. And like, I could totally go do that.

Short Writing To Synthesize

SPEAKER_02

It is, it is really simple. And even if you're not technologically inclined, I mean, just Google how do I what whatever you need to do on the slides. It's very simple, but nowadays all teachers are using some kind of technology in the classroom. Yeah. We don't have the background that we need to, you know, put this together. And if you're in Buffalo, this is perfect because if you're in negative 14 windshield, you're not going on any real field trips. So true.

SPEAKER_01

You're not going anywhere right now. That's true. Well, thank you so much, Pat, for joining me on the podcast. I appreciate it. And I am sure that we will have you back in the future. I look forward to it. Thanks so much. Have a great day, everybody.