I just read the article on Interactive Virtual Field Trips(VFT), and found myself even more excited to become an educator then ever before. The article basically explained the newest way to take a classroom on an adventure that will impact many of the students' lives. I am amazed at how much has changed since I was in elementary school, twenty years ago, and I am excited that students have a chance to experience things that they might never have had a chance to do, except in school. The VFT create opportunities to learn first hand and to learn in a way that is much more exciting than just opening up a text book and reading about the lesson for the day. I wanted to do a little further research on the VFT and went to www.puppets.org, and I experienced five minutes of a class trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts. My experience was filled with joy as I witnessed the students enthusiastic faces as well as the attention that was being paid to the Virtual on screen teacher. All of the students were engaged and had the chance to learn about puppets and learn how to make puppets from the puppet masters themselves! I couldn't help but think of the endless possibilities that students of today and the future had at their finger tips.
My hope, beyond the VFT, is that students still get out and see as much as the world as the can. The VFT are a great way for students to learn about anything, but to actually go to a site and witness, lets say the Great Pyramids of Egypt, is an amazing experience and can not even compare to just seeing it on a giant screen in a schools' tech lab. Kids today are so obsessed with technology that they forget to go outside and just play and be kids. Obviously, I would rather see, as a student, the Great Pyramids on a screen instead of just reading about it, and the VFT is a great way to engage students and really learn them about any subject. It is great that so many organizations have signed on to being a part of the academic world outside of their own world, and by just experiencing the one puppet website, I know that VFT are having a huge impact on students today and again I think about the possibilities, and they really are endless.
This idea of being able to go virtually go anywhere is very exciting especially as a future educator. I was in Washington D.C. this last year for the very first time. During my stay I visited a number of museums, national monuments, and got to see many of the things that I had learned about in history books. I remember thinking to myself how cool it was to be standing in front of so many of these things. Being able to see them in front of me gave me a greater appreciation for them as well as taught me new things. One of the days I went to the Holocaust Museum. When I arrived for the tour there were bus loads of schools there. I thought to myself how cool would it have been to have this opportunity as a student. But the reality is I went to school in California and it would have been way to expensive to fly me and thirty of my classmates to D.C. I think this is where being able to virtually visit a museum is such a great resource.
ReplyDeleteA Virtual Field Trip is an amazing way to inspire students to learn beyond the mundane lectures or readings. This gives the students a chance to tour places like Ancient Egypt or visit the Sistine chapel. While first hand experiences may be the best way to learn about places or about history many times visiting a different country is not a possibility. The Virtual tours provide the students with a similar experience of visiting these places by guided tours with pictures, narratives, videos, etc. Who knows? One of these tours may be the key ingredient to a students education that will motivate them to continue their education so that one day they can visit the Rome to see the Vatican City in order to walk the halls of the Sistine Chapel, or to climb through the ancient pyramids of ancient Egypt. The VFT is a useful tool to captivate the students and activate a their brains in a new way. I can see myself using this tool in my classroom.
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