A Web-Based Teaching Strategy

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What is a VIRTUAL TOUR?

A virtual tour is a Web-based teaching tool that presents multisensory, multimedia instruction appropriate for individual student exploration as well as group learning experiences.

TYPES OF VIRTUAL TOURS

Panoramic Tours

Video Toursunbroken series of photographs

full motion video of a location

How will you use VIRTUAL TOURS inclassrooms?

Guidelines inconducting

VIRTUALTOURS

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

1. Unlike a regular field trip, your worries about students running off in all directions and getting lost are diminished, but not gone. Be sure students know the URL they need to be on and that it is not acceptable to leave the site.

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

2. Complete your own research before attempting to lead students on the field trip. Spend time at the site or exhibit yourself and get to know it thoroughly. If there are external links (links that go to other sites), follow them to make sure they are appropriate for your students.

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

3. Build excitement around the virtual field trip. Like a regular field trip, students should look forward to visiting the exhibition. Prepare students with background information about the subject area, including key vocabulary and concepts. Try to come up with a mystery or riddle that students will solve once visiting the online exhibit.

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

4. Provide goals for students to reach while on the field trip. If computers are limited, divide students into groups and have them complete a treasure hunt. As with all lesson plans, consider how long it will take for students to accomplish the objectives.

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

5. Provide activities that engage students and extend learning. These activities can include an analysis of data, identification of patterns, or comparing and contrasting information.

Guidelines in conducting VIRTUAL TOURS

6. Create follow-up activities that students must complete after they have left the exhibit.

ADVANTAGESand DISADVANTAGES

of VIRTUAL TOURS

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Use digital and computer visualization technique

• Integrate diverse types of data in instantly available ways • Present images from a variety of viewpoints and at many different scales • Display non-visual data (geochemistry, etc.) •Helpful for presenting trips to inaccessible areas • Provide an alternative of fieldwork, when time, expenses, and/or logistics are real issues • Enable presentation of extensive field trips and great variety of landform diversity •Enhance and expand students’ experience

• Do not convey the true three-dimensional nature of objects • Do not convey the non-visual and aural feelings of touch, smell, etc. • Less beneficial than really being in the field • Lack the serendipitous nature of discover

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Based on the personal computer and Internet

• Enable flexibility of access (time and place) • Provides a repeatable experience which can be used to reinforce concepts in class • Provides an easily experienced preview or review of real field trips

• Having limited interaction with a computer •Not interacting with people in a flexible manner

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Multiple styles of access e.g. CDROM and websites

• CD-ROMs are convenient to acquire and use •Information rich

• CD-ROMs can only provide a finite limited amount of information •Visiting a website can be difficult and depends on many factors, such as availability of computers, load on the network, number of connections, reliability of service provision, etc.

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Wide variety available on the Internet

• Hold abundant materials and information • Offer rich resources of learning and teaching

• Easy for students to get lost among lots of websites • Many websites are ephemeral rather than permanent

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Variable quality

• Available for users of different levels and demands

• Often difficult to find a suitable one for teaching and learning • The abundant websites are not quality controlled

ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGESOf VIRTUAL TOURS

Features of VTs ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Designed to be interactive like computer games

• Interesting and attractive to students and an alternative experience for users

• It is easy for students to wallow, or obsess over particular sites, which raises the problem of time management

VIRTUAL TOURS

Experiencing

How many times, after telling the First Great Lesson, have your students wanted to know more about volcanoes? Sadly, many of us aren’t able to go visit a real volcano. The volcano shelf materials are great learning tools, but imagine, after students have learned all they can about volcanoes from the material, being able to explore them up close? Now, they can by using VTs: http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/; http://www.field-trips.org/sci/volcano/.

Virtual field trips not limited to planet earth. How about experiencing the Mars Odyssey launch as you study the solar system? http://www.spacewander.com/USA/english.html.

Or what about exploring the sun up close? http://www.michielb.nl/sun/kaft.htm.

Or talk to real scientists as they make exciting breakthroughs in the name of science? http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/index.html.

Of course, planet earth has plenty of exciting sights. When studying the Middle Ages, why not look at some medieval castles: http://www.castlewales.com/home.html? Or explore the mysterious monoliths on Easter Island: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/. Or explore the arctic at http://www.polarhusky.com/. Or experience dinosaurs and paleontologists up close and personal at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta, Canada: http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/programs/distance_learning.htm.

The possibilities are endless!

HOW TO MAKEA VIRTUAL

TOUR?

Launched in full on August 20, 2008, Microsoft’s Photosynth has been showing people the in’s and out’s of…well…just about anything.