Mar
22
Virtual Viewings, Visits, and Vacations
Posted by: flick | March 22, 2012 | Leave a Comment
I teach in a rural school district. I also teach teacher candidates who are specializing in rural education. For our students there are limited opportunities to visit museums, aquariums, theatres, and cultural events. We live in an area of British Columbia in which elk, osprey, and sturgeon are common wildlife but polar bear, emu, and ocean salmon are scarce. Our nearest volcano (Red Mountain) has been dormant for centuries. Only the occasional pleasure craft makes its way up or down the Columbia River. I chose to investigate Virtual Field Trips. Among the field trips that I embarked upon were virtual visits to the volcano fields of Costa Rica, the San Diego Zoo, and the Panama Canal.
The above sites held some interest for me. I read content, browsed media, and connected to links. My ten-year old son on the other hand responded to the San Diego Zoo visit with “I didn’t see anything. They (the elephants and polar bears) were either all sleeping somewhere else or maybe they died.” His lack of interest in the visit was because I had not given him purpose or facilitated reason for him to visit, discover, and investigate. The virtual field trips, like any resource, will be effective only if incorporated into learning activities well planned and supported by good practice. Good practice that is enhanced by collaboration and participation in a learning community.
A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) may or may not have the four characteristics of a learning community as defined by Bielacyzc and Collins (1999). Valued members with expertise (scientists, teachers, enthusiasts, students) dedicated to learning and who support the sharing of knowledge and skills can work together. The VLE’s that I visited were not stand-alone examples of learning communities. The virtual communities, for the most part, that I linked to were places to visit and not yet developed as a places to live and learn deeply. There was one exception. Field Trip Earth provided access to materials for emerging readers and strategies to assist. Field Trip Earth integrated subject areas purposefully. For example – literature circles were incorporated as well as activities for data analysis. Field Trip Earth gave a hint as to what could be.
The Exploratorium also offered more interactive possibilities and was engaging and could be incorporated easily as a learning resource. Here again, to truly fit the definition of a learning community, Exploratorium would have to be well intentioned by the teacher.
The teacher is an essential element of any VLE. They must ensure students are not overwhelmed and travelling only at the surface level of the experience, disengaged, or experiencing a loss of purpose. (Spicer and Stratford, 2001). Any Virtual Learning Environment should provide the opportunity for visual and audio stimulation. The teacher will still have to provide opportunities to provide somatosensory, olfaction, gustatory experience as is appropriate (although digital technology of the future may well affect these senses).
It is only in recent months that I have become aware of the term, virtual field trip. I would presume these resources are in their infancy. But, if looked at as potential learning communities, the possibilities that they might provide for both educator and student learning and engagement are immense. The possibilities that VLE’s can provide to develop global citizenry are both intoxicating and necessary in the 21st century. Spicer and Stratford (2001) shared that “one of the most fruitful ways forward seems to be the use of VFT to prepare for, or to revise, real field trips” (p. 353). Perhaps VFT’s of elk, osprey, sturgeon, Red Mountain, and the Columbia river need be developed not only for learners far afield but for learners close to home.
Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (1999) Learning communities in classrooms: A Reconceptualization of educational practice. In, Reigeluth CM (Ed.), Instructional Design Theories and Models, A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory,Volume II. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, 269–292.
Spicer, J., & Stratford, J. (2001). Student perceptions of a virtual field trip to replace a real field trip. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17, 345-354.