Introduction

Students love field trips. Why wouldn't they? Field trips provide students with an opportunity to get away from their desks, participate in a new experience, and interact with another environment. Field trips also give students and teachers an additional avenue to engage with the content. Wesley Fryer suggests, "Blended learning contexts which combine face-to-face interaction with online, digital learning, can provide students with more flexible and in-depth opportunities to learn than traditional lectures.... Good teaching is similar in many ways to good cooking. Recipes are helpful, but master cooks often modify those to meet different needs and situations." When introducing video conferencing and virtual fieldtips, Fryer also notes that interactive videoconferencing provides an "outstanding modality for engaging students in the learning process and permitting them to experience new learning opportunities that might otherwise be impossible." Web 2.0 tools like Google Earth, Google Maps and other interactive tours, afford teachers with opportunities to take a break from text books and transport their students with a learning adventure, all without leaving the school campus.
		The Michigan 4-H Children's Garden Kid's Tour is a one example of an interactive tour designed for children. Visitors can click on an interactive map to jump to panoramic views of the garden. Individuals can also click on various icons to learn more about garden features and play online games.

Virtual Field Trips and Tours

"[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.


Additional Resources

Classroom Tools & Tips - Everything for Education K-12

Education Links and original content

Free lesson plans and educational resources


References and Acknowledgments

Andres, Y.M. (1995). Scientist on tap: video-conferencing over the Internet. The Global Schoolhouse Project. Retrieved July 31, 2009 from
http://www.gsn.org/gsh/teach/articles/sot.html

Devlin-Scherer, R. (2003). Cost-free travel with virtual field trips. Technology Learning. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.techlearning.com/article/1338

Fryer, Wes (2009). Virtualfieldtrips. Teach Digital: Curriculum by Wes Fryer. Retrieved July 26, 2009 from http://handouts.wesfryer.com/virtualfieldtrips

Hubble, T. and Weili, Q. (2002). The advantages and disadvantages of virtual field trips in geoscience education. The China Papers, 75-79. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3806469/The-China-Papers-October-The-Advantages-and-Disadvantages-of-Virtual

Virtual tour. (2009, July 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:13, July 26, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virtual_tour&oldid=301013221