A New Way For Students To Take A Field Trip

in technology •  7 years ago 

Class field trips for students can provide children and teens with a unique and interactive learning experience. A well-thought out experience can sometimes offer an educational experience for the children that they will never forget.

There are field trips of all different kinds: visits to the zoo, parks, aquarium, different museums, and more.

The experience of a field trip, whether organized by parents of home-schooled children or teachers with an official institution etc, can be overwhelming to organize at times. There are concerns for cost for everyone involved, transportation worries, making sure no one goes missing, and so on.

There is quite often a lot of headache involved in obtaining the appropriate permission from all levels before the field trip can take place, permission slips need to be acquired, and personal meditation information etc. Perhaps these various difficulties have played a part in contributing to the declining trend of field trips in schools around the US today.

Well, Virtual reality technology might help them to make a comeback...sort of.

Because so many teachers and schools have cut back on field trips, those who want to try and provide their students with a unique learning experience have had to come up with different ideas. One of those has been to introduce virtual reality (VR) technology to the students.

More teachers are turning to use VR to try and capture the attention of their students.

In Wisconsin for example, elementary students there recently got to experience a virtual reality field trip thanks to the help of a cardboard VR kit and a smartphone.

And they aren't the only ones. With the use of this technology, students are able to be transported across the solar system, back to a different time, or to a specific geographic region etc. There are many augmented and virtual experiences that have been created and are being used now around the US, and the students don't need to ever leave the classroom.

Google Expeditions offers hundreds of different virtual reality field trips that can be enjoyed when you use their Android app and the Google Cardboard viewers. Now students can use this technology to get a different perspective about what they might be studying or interested in at the time.

Traditional field trips might seem like they've become something of the past, but thanks to the decreasing price in VR technology it's now made it more accessible to teachers to turn to as an option to try and give their students a more well-rounded learning experience.

Pics:
Pixabay
Pixabay
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert via recode.net/2015/10/1/11619112/stephen-colbert-on-virtual-reality-it-really-feels-like-im-watching

Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/study-students-really-do-learn-stuff-on-field-trips/279720/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2008/05/19/field-trips-going-extinct-schools-cant-spare-time-or-dimes-field-trips
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/06/08/fewer-field-trips-mean-some-students-miss-more-than-a-day-at-the-museum/
http://fortune.com/2017/08/29/virtual-reality-field-trips/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/health/virtual-reality-schools/index.html
http://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/local-news/virtual-reality-field-trip-for-students-at-little-chute-elementary/880681073
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/07/05/google-expeditions-vr-field-trips_n_10758026.html
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/went-vr-field-trip-tomorrow-heres-saw/
https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/20/google-expands-its-vr-field-trips-program-expeditions-with-an-app-for-classrooms-more-virtual-tours/

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That is so cool that they are using vr in schools! So much technology in everything! Very cool post😊

Very interesting! I think VR is still very early in its development and 3-5 years from now the VR we have today will look extremely primitive. The day I can't wait for is when it looks so good that we can barely distinguish the difference between seeing something in real life and seeing something in VR 🤩

Sad that field trips are on the decline in the US. However here in South korea, it is the opposite. On any given weekday you can see hoards of students at the museum, or doing tours outside

wow what a great post dear @doitvoluntarily

I never considered this as an option. The school I currently work in take the 6th graders only to visit a college campus. That is the only field trip for the whole year. The 7th and 8th graders do not go anywhere. I am definitely going to put this in my toolkit. Thanks.

Amazing photos! Thumbs up!

Virtual Reality is really good.
But the question we need to ask is , will it be better than reality?
There whole another level of charm in going to these field trips in dealing where you actually go to these places with your friends to see , feel and experience things.
So in my opinion , virtual reality can't replicate this.

Good news @doitvoluntarily and nice photos !

This is a very sophisticated tool. I am fit to get the learning experience in the field. Very good post. Thanks for sharing @doitvoluntarily.

This will definitely happen. A time when you could actually walk the streets of Lagos, Nigeria from USA with VR

Considering the turmoil in security state and rise in crimes, i think using VR is a win-win for students and their parents. As they can all get what they want (experience of a lifetime and security for their children). Good post! This has given me an idea to introduce VR to my baby when he reaches an appropriate age for introduction to different things.

excellent read. shared ⭐️

I guess that using VR technology for educational purposes could become a very popular option to schools in the future. kids and teenagers are fascinated by this technology and it could make them more motivated to participate the lessons actively and interested. It would be way more fun for them to learn something new than just watching the board and listen and the teachers wouldn't be forced to get bad headache due to spending days planing an excursion. Win-win situation, I think :)

Nice post ! @doitvoluntarily

amazing ,,,
this is a great article,
i want to learn a lot from you,
would you like to see my article
@doitvoluntarily

Booring article you are so amateur good luck '😉

Good news bro and nice photos @doitvoluntarily

VR is bound to take off eventually. The technology is still crude but given time it will be improved and it will open new doors to experiences that right now require taking off your shoes at airport security. The potential is enormous!