SciTrip’s Story
SciTrip 1.5, circa August 2007
The story behind SciTrip is rather simple, actually. I love using online things in my classroom in order to present, reinforce, or teach concepts. I found myself coming up with a system of bookmarks to keep up with sites I used on a regular basis. the problem was those bookmarks were only on ONE computer. And sometimes, looking at the bookmarks, I couldn’t remember why I had marked a certain site.
I tried coming up with a system of lists for each topic area and putting it into a word document. Again, unless I had it with me, I couldn’t remember what site I used for what. And as I came up with a bigger and bigger list of sites, I’d find people looking for a certain thing and I couldn’t remember where I’d seen what.
I also found sites that I couldn’t use, but I knew others could. I would tell people about sites, then have to remember the url for them or the name of the site. And then there were those lists of sites people start? You know. The ones with no descriptions, just site after site that you have to click on and then realize it’s not a thing that you need and you’ve wasted an hour looking through them all? Those were frustrating to say the least.
I had a school site that I used to teach from. It worked really well. Except, again, finding the links I’d used for each lesson got crazy. And I was still finding things I knew others could use, but I didn’t need.
SciTrip started off as my classroom site in August of 2007. My wonderful husband, the internet developer, helped me get it started. When I realized what I had wasn’t working, he helped me come up with a new direction for SciTrip, something that would make finding classroom resources easier and quicker for me. And if it helps out a few more people, then it’s just that much better. I try to at least give a brief idea what the link is for and the fact that you get an image just makes it that much better.
This summer, SciTrip has gotten a facelift. It was time, though I really hated to lose my logo. But the husband says it was dated, so I just sigh and move along. The advantage is that the new format gives me some options I didn’t have before. Hopefully, we’ll be a bit more interactive now.
SciTrip is still just a baby with alot more sites to add in its future. I try to post mostly interactives, animations, and now some videos you can use in your classroom. I’ll post lesson plans if I feel they’re something special. Everything I list is free, public access, and I try to make sure the sites are kid friendly as much as I can. We take no advertisement and make no money from this site. It’s strictly for the use of those teachers out there who need quicker access to materials for their classroom.