An audio tour platform for schools lets you create a route where students listen, look and do something at each stop. You decide which stops to include, which activity belongs to each one and which languages the tour is available in. Students follow the route on their own phones, directly in the browser, without needing to install an app on school accounts. As a teacher, you stay in control: you adjust a stop, publish it again and the next class uses the new version.
This works for a trip to a museum or historic centre, but just as well on your own site: an introductory route through the school building, a biology walk around the school grounds or a route past the practical classrooms during an open day.
What an audio tour adds to a field trip
On a traditional field trip, one guide or teacher accompanies a group of thirty students. Those at the back hear half of what is said, while those at the front have already moved on. With an audio tour, every student hears the same recording at their own pace, with headphones on.
This changes the role of the accompanying teacher. You no longer have to do all the talking. You walk around, check how students are doing with the activities and help anyone who gets stuck. The content is already recorded and stays the same for every group and every day.
There is another benefit in the preparation. Once you record something or have it recorded, you can use it again with every class and in every school year.
Activities per stop: turning listening into learning
A stop involves more than audio. You can add text, images and video to each stop, then use that combination to create an activity. A few formats that work well with a class:
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Observation activity. The recording mentions three details in the room or landscape. The student finds them and describes what they see on the worksheet.
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Comparison activity. The stop includes a historical photo or drawing. The student compares it with the situation today.
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Measuring activity. At a nature stop or in a technology classroom, students count, measure or record something on the spot.
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Interview activity. During a company visit or open day, students ask an employee one question after listening to the recording.
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Choice activity. At the end of the route, the student chooses which stop stayed with them the most and explains why.
Keep the recordings short. A fourteen-year-old will not stand still listening for four minutes. One to two minutes per stop, followed immediately by the activity, keeps the route moving.
You decide the order of listening and doing for each stop. Sometimes you want students to look first and hear the story afterwards. In that case, put the activity in the stop’s text and refer in the recording to what they have just seen.
Working with classes: groups, pace and timing
A class of thirty starting at stop 1 at the same time will still be bunched together at stop 3. There are two ways to prevent this:
Spread out the starting points. Divide the class into groups of three or four and have each group start at a different stop. The route becomes a loop: everyone visits every stop, but in a different order. This does require each recording to stand on its own and not refer to the previous stop.
Spread out the starting times. All groups follow the same order, with five minutes between them. This is simpler to set up, and you can connect the recordings to each other.
GPS triggers help with this: the recording starts automatically when the group arrives at the stop. Students do not have to work out which number belongs to which object, and you do not lose time explaining how to use the tour. Inside a building or on a site without a reliable signal, use stop numbers or a QR code at each point.
Allow time for a short introduction at the start: how to open the tour, where to adjust the volume and what to do if it does not start. Five minutes at the beginning saves thirty separate questions along the way.
Teacher management: who changes what
The platform works in the browser, so management is not tied to one person who has the right software on their laptop. In practice, this means:
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A subject teacher can update the texts for their own route.
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The person who set up the route does not have to be present when a colleague wants to change a stop.
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A change is immediately live in the published tour; the next class uses the new version.
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You do not have to record anything again: text-to-speech turns the revised text into a spoken recording with a natural voice.
That last point keeps maintenance simple. If a recording contains the wrong year, you correct it in the text, not in a recording studio.
Agree within the school who owns each route and who is allowed to publish.
Multilingual: students who are still learning Dutch
In an international bridging class, a newcomer group or a class with students who have been in the Netherlands for only a year, language can get in the way of the content. You can translate the tour into more than 30 languages and adjust the translation where the automatic version is too formal or too literal. Each language gets its own spoken version.
This means a student can listen to the story in their own language and complete the same activity as the rest of the class. Audio also works well for students who find reading difficult: they can access the content without first having to read a worksheet.
In the school’s own visual identity
You set the tour’s colours, logo and typography to match the school’s visual identity. This is not just a cosmetic detail when you also use the route outside lessons, for example on an open day or at a parents’ evening: visitors see the school, not an unfamiliar platform.
How to create your first route
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Choose one route, not five. One field trip or one tour through the building. By the second route, you already know the platform.
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Decide on the stops. Six to ten stops is enough for a lesson, including walking and activities.
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Write the recordings. Allow one to two minutes of speaking time per stop, in the tone you use when talking to the class.
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Add the activity for each stop. Put it in the text or image at the stop, so students can find it again without paper.
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Enable the languages you need. Translate, check the translation and generate the speech.
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Walk the route yourself. With a phone in your hand, at a student’s pace. This is where you find stops that are too long and places where the signal drops out.
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Test it with one class. Ask what was unclear after the lesson and adjust it before the other classes take the route.
Frequently asked questions
Do students need to install an app? No. The tour works directly in the browser on the student’s phone. Nothing needs to be installed, and no school accounts or app store permissions are required.
What if a student does not have a phone? Have students walk in groups of two or three, sharing one phone with a splitter or taking turns with one earbud. This also works well for the activities because they can discuss them.
Can the tour also be used inside the school building? Yes. GPS is not reliable indoors, so use stop numbers or a QR code at each point. The setup of the stops and activities stays the same.
How much time does it take to create a route? This mainly depends on writing the recordings. The technology is not the bottleneck. You assemble, translate and publish everything in the browser, without involving a developer.
Can multiple teachers work on the same tour? Yes, management is in the platform, not on one computer.
Talk further about a route for your school
Would you like to know what a route for your field trip or your own site could look like? Request a demo or schedule a free consultation, and we will go through your stops and activities together.
No hassle. Real impact.
