Peacenlyn~Virtual Field Trips~Wells

McGinnis, Susan. "Virtual Field Trips; CBS Evening News." Online Video Clip. website. 2/23/2007. 2/10/2012 <http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2507464n>. 
~This video shows the various benefits of Virtual Field Trips in a classroom setting. To date, this particular schools' students have visited more than 21 countries.  In the video the White Plains, New York students are on virtual field trips to the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida and to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; traveling and learning thousands of miles away without having to leave their classroom.
 

Manzo, Kathleen. "Virtual Field Trips Open Doors for Multimedia Lessons ." Education Week. 09 02 2012: n. page. 0. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/02/11/21virtualtrip.h28.html.

~Summary~This article talks about the benefits of Virtual Field Trips.  This article was written for educators, and city/state policy makers.  The article was written as an alternative to traditional field trips and perhaps to offer a solution for schools that are reducing field trips for students due to budget concerns.  However, they still want to expose students to hands-on, out of classroom learning; so schools are faced with the dilemna of how to keep students engaged without having the resources to travel-that's where Virtual Field Trips play a role in that decision making.  These types of field trips allow many students at once to attend destinations that they would not otherwise have access to like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska etc... to learn more about the topic they are learning about in class.     Recently, a study was conducted on two classes of field trips to the same destination: One was a traditional bus ride to the local place type trip and the other was done virtually to the same location. When the students were quized on what they remembered and learned on the field trip, the study showed that they students who attended virtually remembered much more.  Why is that? You ask. Simple: The Virtual attendees all could see and hear what was going on.  No one was had to wait in lines to access the learning information, they didn't have the distractions of non-interested students goofing off and creating noise, no pushing to get to the front to see what was going on during the demo times.

~Assess~ Although the article is 4 years old, I find it's still ahead of the curve.  Schools are just now starting to realize the benefits of Virtual Field Trips and are starting to implement this into the curriculum.  Likewise, this article I found was very up-to-date for my topic and was well written by a respected journalist in the Education Field.

~Reflect~ After watching the CBS News coverage and reading the article in Education Week, I believe that Virtual Field Trips will become a must-have in schools across the country.  They are easily accessible; all one needs is internet access and a webcam., they allow students to travel to parts of the world and speak with people whom they never thought would be possible.  These can be great in the inner-city schools that might not have the reasources to allow their students to take traditional field trips.  Furthermore, these will allow more handicapped students to attend field trips as well-allowing an easier flowing style for them.  The video and article were both well done and very imformative.  I really enjoyed  the parts in the video were they allowed the students to speak about the highlights of Virtual Field Trips.