Journal 4

Making Field Trips Podtastic!
By Aliece M. Weller, John C. Bickar, and Paul McGuinness

In this article the authors discuss the benefits of using podcasts on handheld wireless computers as a guide during field trips. An experiment was done on a group of kids at the Boston Museum of Science using this technology, and kids were sent from station to station with their hand held computer and headphones, listening to the podcast and answering short quiz questions. Once the question is answered correctly, the next podcast is "unlocked" and they are sent to a new station or area. They can take pictures as they wish and make observations in their journals on the handheld. This technology in essence adds to the multi-sensory experience of the field trip be it the Zoo, Botanical Gardens, or a Museum. It's range is endless. This requires a lot of prep work on the part of the teacher as they need to create each podcast for the fieldtrip, but the benefits are huge to the students, according to the authors.

How would a teacher go about getting funds to purchase enough sets for their entire class? I'm not sure! The computers used in the experiment were Toshiba Pocket PC e750 which can cost around $200 each. This seems very costly, and I as a teacher would worry about the kids damaging them.

Would the use of handhelds take away from the overall experience on the fieldtrip if the students were solely focused on the technology? Perhaps at first, but I'm sure once the students got used to it, it truly would enhance the learning experience and fieldtrip overall.