Explore the Four Core!
An expedition in the Antarctic
Virtual field trips (VFTs) are a digital way to explore and teach about places and spaces all around the world. Though they are particularly useful for remote learning, they also provide great opportunities in all classrooms for both students and teachers to get more hands-on, embrace creativity, and become fluent in 21st century skills such as information literacy and collaboration. As designers of their own VFTs, students have reported feeling more engaged and empowered in their learning journeys.
As part of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning’s Digital Learning Initiative, I served as the lead designer and writer on the Virtual Field Trips team to build a 30 minute introduction to VFTs, in the form of a VFT itself. The result was Explore the Four Core! (E4C): a fully interactive, narrative-driven lesson designed for middle school classrooms that teaches both students and teachers how to create high-quality VFTs by modeling one in action.
This experience was built as an essential starter resource for schools and educators looking to implement VFTs across content areas. It served as both a pedagogical model and an instructional tool, offering educators a playful, research-based framework they can adapt and extend, and demonstrating how multi-disciplinary content can be made engaging, interactive, and meaningful — even and especially with low-tech tools. By centering student voice and storytelling, E4C helps reframe VFTs not just as passive experiences or content delivery tools, but interactive learning opportunities that foster student agency, reflection, and connection. As classrooms begin to use E4C, the VFT team will continue to iterate.
My Work
E4C is structured in three main parts, allowing students to build and apply knowledge progressively.
1. Just-in-time exploration without prior knowledge of an example student-built VFT, with a focus on exploring tags freely, and asking questions about what does and doesn’t work:
2. Mini-lessons embedded in a remake of the same student-built VFT, which introduce each Core Element and its PB&J counterpart.
3. Opportunities to reflect by applying the newly-learned Core Elements, by comparing and contrasting the original and new scenes.
Modular learning flow uses a combination of locked/unlocked tag interactions for intuitive experience.
Built for Students
E4C leads users through Ernest Shackleton’s
Antarctic expedition, which provides an immersive and historically rich backdrop for exploring VFT design principles. To make the framework accessible and memorable for a middle school audience, I utilized a PB&J metaphor based on VFT research.
Spatial Relevance (peanut butter)
Contextualized Tags (jelly)
Personal Relevance (customizations)
User Experience (the full sandwich)
Scaffolded Instruction
Video demo of mini-lessons and reflection opportunities.
Try out Parts 2 and 3 yourself on ThingLink!
Additional Features
Opportunities for active engagement, such as comparing and contrasting tags, are continuously built-in.
Accessibility is integrated as a core feature. For example, mini-lessons are accompanied by an audio reading.
