Get students email
access. An email
address is required to
create accounts for
most social media
programs. This
poses a challenge
for younger stu-
dents, as most email service providers
require you to be 13 or older to use their
services. zip Trips + Hotseat schools had
a variety of policies regarding student
access to and use of email. A teacher
from one of the more technology-rich
schools used Gaggle with his students
( gaggle.net), which is a controlled online
environment where teachers can adjust
privacy filters and email access settings.
Some school districts are limiting accounts to only high school students. In
that case, one of the teachers in this
group contacted her technology specialist, and they set up temporary Gmail accounts to use during the program, then
deleted the accounts the following week.
Beware of buffering…
buffering… Internet
bandwidth refers to
the connection
speed and amount
of space your school
district has for handling online activity.
High-definition video files or interactive video games, for example, need a
high-speed connection. Ask your tech
specialist if your school has enough
bandwidth to handle large numbers of
students logging in to a program at
one time. One of the participating
classes experienced issues with freezing video because it was a rainy day
and students stayed inside for recess.
As the teacher described it, “I’d say
80% of them had iPods, and that’s
when our internet started buffering.”
Ask those outside of your class to
limit internet use during the time
of your program, so as not to slow
the system down.
Can everyone see?
Most of the teachers
in this study took
their students to
a computer lab to
watch the virtual
field trip, which
was projected on a
wall or an electronic whiteboard. The
students sat at individual desks with
computers to view Hotseat while
watching the zip Trip. However, one
teacher quickly noticed her school’s
computer lab had some students seat-
ed with their backs to the webcast, so
they had to look over their shoulders
to see the screen and then turn back
around to face their computers. It is
important that students can easily
view projected content and computers
at the same time. Computer lab and
classroom setups can directly impact
learning motivation, technology use,
and attention to content.
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