Google Virtual Fieldtrips: Take Your Students Anywhere

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No time to take your students on a field trip? No funds to go to that awesome event? Can't bring in a guest speaker because they live in L.A.?

No Problem!

Virtual Field Trips

Virtual field trips have been around for some time and often involve students individually navigating to a monuments's website and taking the virtual tour. Virtual tours offer panoramic views of a monument or museum in stunning detail. If you have never heard of a virtual field trip or tour before, check out this link of the virtual tour of the Château de Chenonceau in France.

I used this tour frequently in one of my units on Renaissance architecture. Notice how you can move between rooms, pan, and zoom in great detail. Visitors of any virtual tour are treated to important historical information as they would be if physically there. Many, many monuments, parks and historical sites in several countries have virtual tours available including most national monuments and museums in the US. You can find them by visiting the monument or museum's website and looking for  "Virtual Tour."

One major detractor though of virtual field trips has always been that they are rather stale. Even though students can maneuver around a site themselves and get information, it is done without any interaction or personal touch from a guide, docent, etc. Thus, the information presented,  while beautiful and informative, isn't always the most engaging to students. There is usually no expert answering your questions and providing those personal tales that are often the most memorable part of a tour.

Enter Google Connected Classrooms 

Watch this introduction:

Wow, right? 

This truly amazing opportunity is free from Google and can be done in any classroom in the district -- whether as a live event or to be viewed after the fact. It uses Google Hangout video conferencing (similar to Skype), a computer, and a projector. That's it. And it's free. 

What a great culminating activity for students to be able to see their learning in the real world, travel to places they may never get to, & hear from experts in the field!

If you are interested in setting up a Google Connected Classroom field trip or need help with any other virtual field trip, please email me.