Creating Virtual Field Trips
- briannaduvall
- Mar 1, 2021
- 5 min read
Virtual Field trips have become increasingly popular as a result of the pandemic...and for good reason! I know my students absolutely love it when our lessons are in the format of a virtual field trip because it gives our lessons an engaging theme to follow. While they're certainly time consuming to create...the process isn't nearly as daunting as it seems! I made an IGTV explaining this process over the weekend if you're interested in watching me work through the process!
So what do you need to do?
First things first....you need to decide where you're going! Are you going to a real location like New York City or Japan? Or are you going to a fantasy/make believe location like an ice kingdom? Once you have that figured out, you'll need some clipart. I like to purchase mine on TeachersPayTeachers or Etsy.
Next, you need to plan your content. Is your content specific to your location? For example, if you chose New York City, are you learning about Broadway/Musical Theatre? Or are you using it more as a theme for your lesson? I generally prefer to use my virtual field trips as a theme for my lessons and I fill them with a variety of content such as solfege exercises, rhythm practice, instrument identification, tempo identification, movement activities, stories, etc. Whatever you want your content to be, make sure you have it planned BEFORE you start assembling your field trip graphics!
Once I have my content planned out, I like to start designing my graphics. I start with PowerPoint for two reasons. First, PowerPoint will let you incorporate your own fonts. Second, when I export my slides as images I know all of my clipart is flattened. This is necessary if you plan to list your field trip on TeachersPayTeachers! The first thing I like to design is my home page. I like to include 5 or 6 elements that will each host an activity.
For example, I had an evergreen tree, a castle, a snowy owl, an ice queen, an ice prince and a snow horse/unicorn as activity "hosts" in my Ice Kingdom virtual field trip. I assembled them into a home page that I will make clickable later on when I upload everything to Google Slides.
*note: you can create your field trip in PowerPoint and leave it in PowerPoint if you wish.
After you've assembled your home page and you've planned your content, it's time to start putting it together. Each "host" will need it's own slide. Some hosts will need more than one slide, depending on the activity. For example, if one of the activities is based on a video...chances are it will only need one slide. You'll make that slide and leave space to include your video later. In my example here, I'll place the video in the large space underneath the text. I generally hold off on adding the videos until I upload everything to Google Slides since Google does a really good job with incorporating videos from both your own Google Drive and YouTube.
Some activities will need several slides. For example, if you plan to make an interactive game, you will need a slide with the question, a slide for the right answer, and a slide to redirect your students if they get the wrong answer.
I usually only make one slide for correct answers and one slide for incorrect answers for the whole field trip. I just copy and paste for each question! This will save you a lot of time in the long run.
Once we put these into Google Slides, we'll hyperlink them for each question so it's an interactive game. This is the tedious part!
Once you have all of your activity slides designed and ready to go, click "file -> save as" in PowerPoint. It will then prompt you to choose a location to save your file as well as name your document. Once you've done that you will need to change the file type! Click the drop down menu and choose an image type. I generally prefer to save my images as PNG files. Once you click save, PowerPoint will ask you if you want to export all slides or just one. Select all slides. This will save you time, and PowerPoint will export all of your image files into one file folder for easy access!
Now that your image files are good to go, you'll want to go ahead and upload those to Google Slides. If you need to copy and paste any slides (such as the correct/incorrect answer slides) - now is a good time to do that. Also, if you have any video or audio files you need to embed, now is also a good time for that.
Alright...we're in the final stretch! The last thing you need to do to make your virtual field trip interactive is add hyperlinks. If you're hyperlinking a specific item on a page, you'll want to create a shape (I usually just make a rectangle), then you'll want to make it transparent, and then link it to the appropriate slide in your field trip. This is the process I would use for linking the different hosts on your home page, as well as linking correct and incorrect answers on a slide with a question. Here's a short video showing you how I hyperlink an individual item:
If you need to hyperlink a whole page, the process is very similar. For example, if I am making an interactive game within my field trip with questions for my students to answer, I need to link my slides for correct answers and incorrect answers. I want my entire slide for the correct answer to lead my students onto the next question and I want my entire slide for the incorrect answer to take my students back to the question to try again. Here is a short video showing you how I link an entire slide:
Once all of your hyperlinks are in place....congratulations! You have a virtual field trip ready to go! If you plan to do your field trip together as a class, I would just put your slides in "present" mode and go through it that way. If you want to send your field trip to your students to complete independently, I click "file" and then "publish to the web" in Google Slides. This will give your students a link that will take them directly to your field trip already in "present" mode so they can get the completely interactive experience!
I hope this was helpful and inspiring! If you end up making a virtual field trip of your own, please be sure to come back and tell me all about it!
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