Discover Denver! An Inquiry Adventure Featuring the City, a Smartphone & YOU!

Purpose & objective

The purpose of this session is to provide participants with an engaging and immersive learning experience focused on Denver's history and cultural diversity while exposing them to digital tools and resources they can use with their students.

Objectives:
The Participants will…
Gain a better understanding of Denver's history and the cultural diversity that influences the city's identity.
Develop the ability to use curiosity as a driving force for inquiry and creativity.
Acquire skills to enhance and edit photos using Google Photos, transforming them into compelling visual narratives.
Learn how to integrate digital tours into educational settings effectively.
Be equipped with practical strategies and resources to bring these experiences and tools into their classrooms, promoting a deeper connection between students and historical and cultural contexts.
Collect images, articles, videos, and podcasts to layer multimedia to differentiate for learners, build background knowledge, and spark curiosity.
Create a mini-inquiry for students to introduce and explore a new content area.
Leverage a handful of easy-to-use tools that invite students to create and scale for authentic audiences.

Lesson plans:
The inquiry adventure will begin with a brief introduction to the Denver area using images and storytelling to build background knowledge. Then, using the website provided, attendees will engage in a reading frenzy where they have the opportunity to choose one or more articles, short videos, or graphics to deepen their understanding of Denver. In a small group, attendees will share what they learned during the reading frenzy and then generate a list of questions they had after their reading. At this time, attendees have used digital media to build background knowledge, selected a topic of their choosing for further research, discussed their findings with colleagues, and generated questions for further study. Next, attendees will take their learning into the field as they explore Denver on a walking tour.

On the walking tour, attendees will engage in a photo walk with a guided exploration of historical sites around the Convention Center, including:
Colorado Panorama: A People’s History
Civic Center Park
On the War Trail
Mile High Steps

During the walking tour, participants will get hands-on instruction on how to tell a story with photos and lessons for composing high-quality images.

After the tour, the group will return to the convention center and reflect upon what they saw, what made them think, and what they wondered. After this small group discussion, attendees will engage in a mini-lesson on using Google Photos to edit and enhance their photos to effectively tell a story. Attendees will then edit three photos to improve their composition.

Next, presenters will introduce Google Map Builder as a mentor model and will identify and explore the features used to create a digital tour. Attendees will then use Google Sites as a way to synthesize their tour experience.

The time will conclude with attendees brainstorming how they can create this type of multimodal learning experience for students and the resources they can use to do so. The presenters will end by identifying the skills and standards addressed during this workshop.

Attendees will leave with various lessons, websites, and apps they can use to teach and develop inquiry experiences for students.

Supporting Research:
Edutopia: Virtual Field Trips
EdSurge: 5 Strategies to Promote Curiosity in Learning
Denver Public Library: Denver History
Read the World: Rethinking Literacy for Empathy and Action, Amplify: Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom
Edutopia: Guiding Students to Find Multimodal Literacy
The National Education Association (NEA) inquiry-based learning - https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/inquiry-based-learning

Outline

Welcome & Introductions (4 min) - Image immersion activity: show two photos from Denver, and attendees will turn and talk using the prompt: “What do you see? Think? Wonder? about the photos. Peer-to-peer.

Getting to Know the Attendees (6 min) - 4 corners activity to learn more about the background of the attendees. Whole group collaboration.

Cultivating Our Curiosity (20 min) - An introduction to the research on curiosity. Mini-inquiry image study followed by a multimedia (text, video, audio) Reading Frenzy where attendees self-select a topic for further research. Attendees will then brainstorm questions they have about Denver. Device-based and peer-to-peer.

Enhancing Visual Stories (10 min) - Mini-lesson on using Google Photos to edit and enhance photos to tell a story effectively. Attendees will enhance three photos using Google Photo. Device-based.

Let’s Go Explore! (45 min) - Attendees will leave the convention center for a guided tour of local historical artifacts. During the walking tour, attendees will visit artifacts near the convention center that tell the story of Denver. During the walk, the presenters will offer two minilessons on how to compose a high-quality photo. Attendees will capture photos along the tour using their smartphone. The whole group actively engaged with the environment and smartphones.

What Did We Find? (5 min) - Attendees will work in small groups, participants will share their photographs on their phones. Peer-to-peer.

Using a Digital Tour With Students(15 min) - After using their Google Map participants will reflect on how to use Map Builder to create a tour for students.

Sharing our Learning (10 min) - Attendees will share their photos to Google Slides and brainstorm how to create an inquiry tour for students. Peer-to-peer.

Wrap-Up (5 min) - Presenters will summarize all the skills addressed during the inquiry tour: visual image study, knowledge construction, asking questions, inferring details from a piece of multimedia, summarizing and synthesizing, listening and speaking, informational reading, using multiple sources, active engagement, digital photography, editing photos, digital publication and creating a multimedia text, designing a virtual tour, and communicating a message using text, images, and audio. Presenters will provide lesson plans for students and an inquiry planning guide. Whole group.