In the article "To Russia With...Technology" Beal explains how using technology can build expectations, create high interest, apply differentiated instruction, and provide alternative assessment opportunities for students. Beal and a team of graduate students work on the Russia Project that created "the ultimate virtual field trip" as Beal and two graduate students blogged and posted photographs of their trek across Russia that was a research based project used to prove that curriculum integration was the answer to how early adolescents learn best.
Beal describes their time in Russia and how the field trip worked: "Each day in Russia, we posted e-mails with digital pictures of the mountains of snow, cultural happenings, and historic buildings. Through word-of-mouth, we gained a following. When we returned, we answered e-mails from a host of sixth-grade teachers and students. Students had questions that we hadn’t addressed in our e-mails. We were asked to visit several classrooms to talk about the trip. Teachers suggested that we might want to broaden the project to involve them and their students."
While it is not possible for every teacher to take an elaborate trip across the globe to create a virtual field trip like Beal and the graduate students did, the resources for students to take the virtual trips that others have created are readily available.
As I observe the virtual school World Cultures class I see how the curriculum lends itself to the supplementary resources of virtual field trips to experience visually the imagery of other people and places. I think it is vital that students learn about the culture of other regions and people groups and it is hard to fully grasp what culture is through text only. I think the idea of virtual field trips will greatly benefit students of the virtual schools that use them as we work on helping students to understand the global culture that is fashioning around them.
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What an awesome virtual field trip, visiting a distant and not easily accessible place like Russia. This not only gives the students access to immediate pictures and information, it provides a record for future students. I have a former student who received a grant to study the cloud canopy of Costa Rica. He is an avid photographer and bird biologist. He and his videographer partner are going to climb up in the trees of the rainforest until they are actually in the clouds and film and photograph the birds, other animals, and vegetation of that unique environment. From his website, here’s the educational thrust: "The educational supplement will be distributed on the worldwide web and also use a targeted distribution through collaboration with the non-profit organization Teach for America to reach a wide audience of underserved student populations."
I envision this turning into a virtual fieldtrip for science. Go to www.drewfulton.com for more information.
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