Reflect on educational journal using ISTE publication and Citation Machine
Zanetis, J. (2010). Beginners guide to interactive virtual field trips. learning and leading. 37(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=March_April_No_6_1&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4516&ContentID=25443&DirectListComboInd=D
Virtual Field Trips (VFT) provide some advantages over regular field trip when it comes to educating kids. As stated by Jan Zanetis in her article ‘The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips’ cost and availability make VFTs attractive. Gas prices, parents' time away from work (opportunity costs), admission fees all drive up the cost when taking kids to a real world field trip. There is also the difficulty of finding a place of interest that is nearby and available to entertain a large group of kids. Students from big cities might have an easier time finding attractive field trip sites than students from rural areas. In any case, VFTs offer rural and urban students a much larger choice of interesting places to visit. Plus asynchronous VFT sites are available whenever; which surely eases scheduling issues. Another reason VFTs are good learning tools is that the topic material is filtered and polished. Thus, the lesson will almost always yield the effect a teacher expects; whereas, real world field trips do not always go as planned.
Does the CILC program provide some sort of test or survey that could measure the effectiveness of a given VFT?
Having a way to determine whether or not students comprehend what they are watching would be a good tool to improve existing and future VFTs. This could be said of real world field trips too. A good comprehensive test would lead kids to focus on the main points of topic, and would also provide an outline for discussions.
What advantages do real world field trips have over virtual field trips?
Sometimes there are intangible lessons in life that textbooks and movies cannot give. Going on a real world field trip with your classmates are sometimes the best experiences kids have in school. The lesson is almost secondary to these kids. Excited kids being in a different setting with friends provides opportunities to teach kids social skills on how to behave appropriately. VFTs have their advantages, but real world field trips will always have theirs.
No comments:
Post a Comment