Colleen+Posey-Nelson

This is Colleen's page.I have prepared my reaction to the virtual fieldtrip to the new Bedford Whaling Museum.

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Colleen Posey-Nelson Foundations of Instructional Technology July 12, 2011

Virtual Fieldtrip Response

I have taken my elementary school aged children on many fieldtrips over the years. We've been to the Natural History Museum, the Air andSpaceMuseum, as well as a number of state parks and farms. I must admit that since I was dealing with very young children from ages 5-8, I was primarily worried about their physical safety and whether everyone would get back on the bus with their chaperones in one piece. Although the academic content of the trip was important, it was not always my first concern. Having taken the virtual fieldtrip to theNew BedfordWhalingMuseum, my eyes were opened to the possibilities. I visited everything they had to offer in the exhibit "Portraits of Ports" and I was able to linger over them as I chose. I could never do that in an actual museum since it was usually so crowded that at best I could catch a quick look at something before being swept along with the crowd to the next thing. Now I realize that I can take my children to a virtual museum and stretch the experience over several days. I liked the interactive parts and I know my students would too.

I have no doubt that I could find a virtual museum experience for just about any subject I teach. TheNew Bedford experience would be much more suited to upper elementary and middle school students. I could assign segments of the exhibit during computer time and give them a list of questions to ask similar to what was given to us. They could even use the virtual exhibits to help present a piece to their classmates. I would love to assign particular topics to groups of students and challenge them to come up with ways to present their knowledge to their classmates in an engaging way. Teaching what they learned to the rest of the class would be a great way of ensuring that they understood the content. With my kindergarten children I would do a whole class activity, while I paused to ask questions and allow them to discuss their reactions to what they learned.

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[|Reaction to CAST organization.doc] [|Ms. Nelson's UDL lesson plan.doc]