Virtual Field Trips – New Article
In a recently published journal article in Computers & Equation about a 2004 Faculty Innovation in Teaching (FIT) project, the benefit of developing virtual fields trips is discussed.
“In deciding what kind of learning to target in a VFT, one has to be realistic. Clearly VFTs cannot provide the physical perception that one has in the field, such as touching soil, walking along rice paddy fields, visiting the Taj Mahal, or climbing the stairs of a Mayan pyramid. A well-designed VFT, involving maps, images and video clips in a variety of formats, could however help students imagine what a real field trip to the site would be like. In addition, a VFT could give a sense of time travel or depict geotemporal changes that could not be seen in a real field trip.”
Source: Jacobson, A. R., Militello, R., and Baveye, P. C. (2009) Development of computer-assisted virtual field trips to support multidisciplinary learning. Computers & Education. 52, 3 (Apr. 2009), 571-580.
There are many examples of virtual fields trips that have been developed by the FIT program for different types of courses and student learning. The VFT’s have been designed to combine multi-media resources for students to explore the content and utilize in course assignments and papers.
Other examples from FIT projects include…..
Vicos: A Virtual Tour (B.J. Isbell, 2005/2007)
This web site was developed initially for anthropology and developmental sociology courses. The site contains a rich repository of images, video, maps and interactive animations to bring the remote location into the classroom for Cornell students.
Virtual Visits to Women’s Health Facilities
(Andrea Parrott, 2004)
In the Contemporary Issues in Women’s Health course, students attend 8 out of 12 weekly field trips. There are many sites that students should visit but are difficult or impossible to visit during a semester. This project also created “Virtual Visits” so students could visit inaccessible sites. The tours area of the site were developed both as independent multimedia visits, and to be accompanied with video- or audio-conferencing during class time, or with a paired onsite visit to a similar type of women’s health facility.
Though each of these examples represent content for a range of courses, they all provide an interactive experience for students to explore the content in new ways. The virtual field trip helps to facilitate new learning by providing remote access to theses sites, as well as designing the interactions for student learning.