Virtual Field Trips

The Article

Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips!

You look outside the classroom window and see yet another in a long string of gloomy days. Inside the classroom, restless students seem mired in malaise. It must be time for a field trip! No money, you say, for busses or admission fees. No time for travel? Then why not a virtual field trip? The Web provides the resources; you provide the fun. Every day is a beautiful day for a virtual field trip! Included: Tips for creating your own virtual field trips!

Have you ever taken your students on a virtual field trip? If not, you're missing a great opportunity. You can take your students outside the classroom without ever opening the door! Like regular field trips, virtual field trips are designed to be entertaining and educational.

"[Taking a virtual field trip] is so much better than boarding a school bus and going to a museum or something and listening to a boring speech about each of the exhibits," Emily, a high school student from Maine, told Education World after she and her classmates took a virtual trip to view the Natural Wonders of the World. "It's better in that I could view each place in my own time; I wasn't rushed through, like on many field trips. I would gladly go on this type of field trip [again]. It saves time and money and is very convenient," added Emily.

Virtual field trips tailored to every grade level are springing up all over the Internet! Trips range from the simple, such as a photo tour of a famous museum, to extremely detailed and high-tech field trips that offer video and audio segments to make the visit more interactive.

However simple or complex, virtual field trips can take your students to a completely new world -- and the trips are as close as your computer!

WHERE CAN YOU GO ON A VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP?

On a virtual field trip, you and your students can go just about anywhere on Earth -- or on out into the solar system!

For a trip to another galaxy, check out The Nine Planets. An engineer who has a great love of the solar system put this site together. The star buffs in your classroom will love it too!

For a trip to another environment, how about Live from Antarctica 2? Students can follow a team of explorers through every step of their trip across the frozen continent. The site includes activities, reasearcher questions and answers, links to related sites, and more.

Maybe you'd like to take your city kids someplace they might not get the chance to visit on their own. Then check out one of the six virtual tours at 4-H Virtual Farm. Here, students can visit a horse farm, a beef or dairy farm, a poultry farm, and a wheat farm. There's even a fish farm!

MANY MORE EXAMPLES ON THE WEB!

Those are just a handful of thousands of virtual field trips students can take on the Web! Some are very simple, created by students, teachers, and parents. Others are big-budget productions that include several trips and extensive teaching resources. Either way, virtual field trips provide opportunities for new discovery in the classroom.

CREATE YOUR OWN VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP

Any teacher -- or student -- who is even remotely computer savvy can create a virtual field trip! It's as simple as taking a camera along when the class goes off on a field trip. Take plenty of photos, then upload them to your computer and add them to your class or school Web site. There, you've created your first virtual field trip!

If you'd like to add material other than photos and text, use The Virtual Field Trips Site to create your own field trips and share them with other educators.

You'll find additional resources to help you create great virtual field trips in the Additional Virtual Field Trip Links section of this article.

TEACHERS TALK ABOUT THE VALUE OF GOING VIRTUAL!

Teachers Education World talked to seemed to really enjoy using and creating virtual field trips with their students. Students seem to value them as a way to learn about places they might never get to visit. "I decided that the World Wide Web offered an excellent way to access these places, events, and opportunities," said Gary Gillespie, a Seattle teacher who has created a number of virtual field trips for his students. "Students can explore the sites and use the information and pictures for reports or speeches."

So, if you want to take your class around the world, it's never been easier! You can create field trips for your students to experience and enjoy or explore the many trips just waiting to be discovered on the Web. Either way, the world and all its many wonders are waiting, just a click of the mouse away!

ADDITIONAL VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP LINKS

You can learn more about virtual field trips with these links to field trips:

• John Muir Exhibit This exhibit by the Sierra Club offers the concise story of Muir's life, writings, and works. It includes sounds, video, and text.
• Secrets of Easter Island This is a beautiful Web site put together by Nova and PBS. It includes a tour of the island and the game Move a Megalith.
• Virtual Geologic Field Trip to Griffith Park If you're interested in geology and earthquakes, take a look at this site. It was developed for use on its own or as an introduction to an actual field trip to Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
• Explore the Estuary If your students are studying the tides, ocean, or water dwellers, this is an excellent site. It includes video tours.
• Minnesota Orchestra European Virtual Tour This site for both music and European exploration was developed for student and teacher use.
• The JASON Project This many-faceted site hopes to "put the thrill of discovery back into the classroom." It offers several different trips, including one that follows a crew living aboard the space station.
• Holy Land Network This site provides field trips of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Tiberias.
• Reach the World Sail around the world on a 43-foot sailboat, and meet the crew who did it. You'll find separate centers for teachers and students.
• PolarHusky.com This site chronicles the dogsledding expeditions made especially to educate the children of the world.
• GOALS: Global Online Adventure Learning Educators developed this Web site to "intrigue you with the adventures, the sciences, the technologies and the underlying laws of nature that make them possible."
• Virtual Field Trips If you're looking for a museum trip, here's a list of several available on the Web.
• Virtual Field Trips Here's another site where you can create your own field trip or try out other teachers' efforts.

Article by Sherril Steele-Carlin
Education World®
Copyright © 2006 Education World

Summary

Virtual field trips are an amazing way to get students outside of the classroom in an organized and modern fashion. By using virtual field trips, the students and teachers are able to save time and money. No one has to drag themselves to a museum or find the money to pay for an extra item that is not in the budget. Now with so many people in college taking on line courses because of the convenience, these types of field trips make sense.
Students do not have to leave the comfort of their own homes and can experience an interactive environment. A lot of people in college these days have families already and it is difficult to take time out of the schedule to go on an actual field trip. The virtual kind can be done in several different ways. They may just be several photos, a virtual tour, or an actual tour with a tour guide.
Not only are virtual field trips helpful for college students, they can be used within the classroom at all school levels. Some schools may not be able to afford the buses and equipment needed to take children on the field trips. These virtual trips allow the classroom to be their portal into a more interactive environment, where learning is more fun.
Teachers can even create their own field trips. On any day off, a professor or school teacher could go to a certain educational place and photograph what they deem as important material. They could make slide shows, which could be shown within the classroom, and they could act as the tour guide. This would allow the teachers to focus only on the parts which they feel is important to the matter they are studying. (Mariel)

Thinking and Reflecting

Virtual field trips are a great way for teachers to take their students out of the classroom with out the hassle of expenses, planning, setting a date, permission slips, providing lunches and finding chaperons. They also give the class an opportunity to explore at their own pace. Virtual field trips are also easier for elementary school teachers because taking younger kids on field trips requires a lot of patience and supervision. Teachers should carefully plan out the virtual field trip as if it were a real one. The teacher should provide the student with background information about the field trip they will be taking and have them answer questions along the virtual field trip to keep them interacted maybe even have them work in groups. It would be helpful for a person or teacher planning a virtual field trip to take a few virtual field trips themselves to give them ideas on how to create the virtual field trip. Virtual field trips are a great way to keep students excited about learning. Students generally enjoy field trips and virtual field trips are more accessible so the teachers could take their students on more field trips through out the school year. (Alison)

I believe that virtual field trips will allow teachers to take their students to new and different places. Elementary school teachers who teach Spanish can take their students to Spain without the hassle of out of country travel. Middle school teachers could take their class to Egypt to learn about the history instead of using text books. This technology is a great help, in my opinion, to teachers. I believe that this idea will grow until it has reached the depths of the education world. (Kimberly)

Further Research

For children growing up in today times with both parents working full time and family vacations getting shorter in time and closer to home, virtual field trips during school time is the only time some of these kids get to explore new places. I think some are of research that needs to be looked at is how this can help a child develop life long interest in a future career, not original able to them where they live. Another area for to study to see the effect of a virtual field, may be children with disability. This will give these children the feeling of getting to go to place that may be out of reach to them other wise. Like a field trip to a top of a mountain or maybe to explore underwater caves. (Paula)

Virtual Field Trips are typically designed to make efficient use of a learner's time and to spend time focusing on using information rather than searching the Internet.
Virtual field trips allow us to conduct traditional field trips digitally. What makes technology so transforming is that it compels us to look at traditional thinking and question our presumed boundaries.
Online a field trip does not have to be just a visit to a physical location beyond our own physical space. Virtual field trips can take us inside a plant cell, along a body
system, across constellations and through time. Once preconceived assumptions are set aside, virtual field trips redefine the limits of our physical classroom and our traditional concepts of teaching and learning. (Arwen)