Victorian (Loddon Mallee Region) Ultranet Teaching and Learning Coach Maryna Badenhorst has written a useful blog post on virtual excursions (or virtual field trips).
If for whatever reason, classes are unable to leave the school, Maryna has developed some engaging tasks for students to complete. As Maryna says, “A virtual field trip ‘takes students on a tour of a location using a series of web sites that have been linked together, creating a guided experience.”
Ideal for remote or regional schools, as well as those who find it difficult to get away from school for a whole day.
Maryna’s post has some excellent ideas – and I especially like the suggestion about one school ‘hosting’ another. One question though: can schools access Second Life? Last year when I was doing the Web 2.0 online course I had to check it out at home, because it (and all the other social networking sites) were blocked at school.
Lisa Hill, Mossgiel Park PS
Thanks Lisa. Some schools use OpenSim (http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page) to host stuff on their own server (closed to the public) that can be modified for children’s use. I know of one example where the developers of Open Sim gave a school the code to ensure that characters in a Second Life type application could not undress!
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