Zero accident in virtual field trip

MANILA, Philippines - Imagine a group of students on a  field trip near a volcano crater that is about to explode or a science class just a few  meters away from a  rampaging elephant in the Amazon. Nothing  to  worry,  they are on a virtual fieldtrip and they  can even go inside a tornado without  getting harmed.

With the  help of modern technology, teachers can now take  their students to  educational fieldtrips anywhere in the  globe without ever opening  the  door. It’s called “Virtual Fieldtrip”.

A virtual field trip is a guided exploration  that organizes a collection of pre-screened, thematically based topics using  the internet or  a projector for  better learning experience like  the  actual visit to a zoo or museum.

No passport? No problem! Tourism students can likewise travel to places they like with a P100 budget. Aspiring hoteliers can also go inside five star hotels and explore their kitchen and learn new tricks with a single click of  the  computer.

With virtual fieldtrip,  similar accidents like the Madlum River tragedy where seven BSU students perished or the Benguet bus accident will be a thing of the past and should be seriously considered as alternative to actual fieldtrips that are very expensive and additional burden to parents.

 Like regular field trips, virtual field trips are designed to be entertaining and educational. Trips range from the simple trip to a zoo, a photo tour of a famous museum, to extremely detailed and high-tech field trips that offer video and audio segments to make the visit more interactive.

 Some virtual fieldtrip providers and links include  The Nine Planets,  Live from Antarctica 2, The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC),  Explore the Estuary, and teachers or even students can design their own field trip by searching the internet.

Customized Curriculum The beauty of virtual field trips is that they can be customized for your students and the educational goals you want to meet.

Virtual field trips also allow students to connect face to face with authors for a fraction of the cost of in-person visits. Teachers say that virtual visits deepen students’ understanding of what they are reading, and that the technology allows writers who might not otherwise go on a traditional book tour to reach readers across the country.

Let us not take away the value of educational fieldtrips to our students, but let us not also waste the lives of our students with useless road accidents. With virtual fieldtrip, the lives of  our precious love ones  will be  preserved. After all, who does not want to see them graduate or finish school? —Glenys Santiago (Gonzaga National High School teacher in Cagayan)