Virtual Fieldtrips

It is common knowledge that virtual reality setting are a big hit in today's society. That is no different for the classroom, and in fact can enhance a lot of our learning journey. Students enjoy going virtual for education just as the do for home enjoyment. By bringing virtual reality to the classroom, schools are able to go on virtual field-trips to places that otherwise would never be possible. Virtual field-trips provide the chance to explore people, places, and things, without physically going. But just knowing that there is a way and not knowing how to access it can be a lot to process. Before beginning to look for the best way to bring other parts of the world to life, there are a few things to think about. What are you wanting your students to do? What are you wanting them to take away? What is the over all goal? How can you assess the students? Will you need to differentiate? If you are like me, the first thought that comes to mind when you think of doing virtual field-trips is the cost. How am I going to afford product and programs that will do what I need for my students. There are actually a lot of cheaper resources that can be used to incorporate this awesome concept in your class. Some resources to check into if you are wanting to do this with your class are Google goggles/Google Lens, Field-trip zoom, Discovery Education, Google expeditions, and You visit. There are VR sets for as little as five dollars on amazon and many VR apps are free. Doing virtual field-trips can be of great assistance in multiple areas of the classroom. One way I plan to use it in my future classroom is by providing some schema for students who are less fortunate to experience some of the things we may talk about. It is always helpful if students, no matter the background, have a little bit of prior knowledge to build upon when entering a lesson. It can also be used as a reward at the end of a unit. Maybe you just got done studying an animal unit and you want to throw in more about it. You could have the students visit say the largest zoo in the world. There are so many ways to tie such a thing into the classroom and bring a whole new aspect on the things students are learning about.

*One thing a classmate of mine mentioned in her recent project about this subject, was that someone told her they would like to visit inside the human body as a virtual field-trip and related it to the magic school bus. Who knew a tv show that we used to watch, would one day actually be a concept involved in our real life classrooms.*      

Watch this video for an example of a virtual field-trip to Amazon Rainforest!