Technology allows teachers to teach beyond the classroom

On my classroom website, I have included a page of learning opportunities for students and their families to take part in outside of school. As I am planning to teach science and social studies, it occurred to me that just about any city in the country would offer activities that would reinforce these subjects.


After a bit if brainstorming, I was able to come up with several planned outings for families to participate in during their time together. For example, for a history-oriented outing, I included a trip to our downtown history museum, a self-guided downtown walking tour of historic places, and either a meal at one of our downtown restaurants that capitalize on their historic past, or a picnic in a nearby park. For science, I encouraged families to visit a local nature center and either hike or bike the nearby trails or greenway. In order to provide options for different family budgets, many of the activities I included offered free options and suggestions of nearby picnic spots.


I also included links to the websites for all the places I suggested, and suggested parents help their students research the sites and develop their own planned visits. I think it is important to encourage parents and students to look through the websites together, as each will learn something from the process. This would give parents an opportunity to guide their children on how to responsibly use the Internet, and to convey how they expect their student to use modern technology. Parents will probably be surprised at how much they too will learn from watching their students interact with the websites.


In my experience, children like to show adults how much they know about computers and modern technology. Using websites to plan an outing together would also show parents how computer savvy their children already are, and could initiate more active monitoring of their children’s computer use. This could help them better protect their children from dangers and misuse of the technology they can access.


I had a great time developing the outing ideas for my future students, and I hope that one day these resources will be of use. I relocated to Knoxville, and was not aware of most of the city’s educational offerings. I hope my website will help new families in the area discover some of our town’s amenities, and I hope all my students’ families will take advantage of my ready-made activities and enjoy them with their children.


I know teachers really have no control of what happens in their students’ home lives. However, by providing activities outside the classroom, I think we can show that we truly care about all aspects of our students’ lives by providing meaningful educational experiences that promote family interaction.