Not too long ago, one would have thought that it was impossible to be in one location and interact with another location whether the distance was near or far. Therefore in the case of the teacher on the west coast of the United States who would like her students to take an interactive virtual tour of prominent art museums in New York City, many distance learning opportunities allow her students to take on this opportunity. Two distance learning opportunities that will be discussed in this blog are podcasts and multimedia sharing sites.
According to Laureate (n.d.), a podcast is can be presented in various forms. Podcasts are also frequently updated. Laureate also suggests that podcasts be used to enhance research. Thus, in the case of the teacher on the west coast who would like her students to see exhibits on the east coast, a good use of a podcast would be an updated video of a museum curator walking through the museum exhibits and talking about them. The museum curator could also record an audio version just in case video capabilities are not available. This idea could also be effective because the students and teacher could pause, fast forward and rewind if they feel like they need to review something that was already shown or spoken. As a side note, the majority of podcasts are audio files. However, I have come across video podcasts throughout my recent years as a student.
An example of podcasts enhancing the virtual tour is located on the National Museum of the US Air Force website (2012). On this website, several professionals of the Air Force author audio podcasts that enable the listener the visualize what is being said as they tour the museum from anywhere in the world that has access to the podcasts.
Yet another example showcasing the effectiveness of podcasts in the distance learning virtual tours experience is in tourism itself. In this case, the island of Rottnest uses podcasts in its advertising ventures to entice tourists. Access to these podcasts is given at rottnestisland.com (2012).
While a podcast limits a virtual tour to mostly audio which some video podcasts available here and there, multimedia sharing sites, enable all media to be shared wherever there is a connection to the Internet. According to Laureate (2012), multimedia websites are those that facilitate the sharing of all things media. Examples of multimedia sharing websites are Youtube, Flickr, and Slideshow. However, a major drawback to a multimedia sharing website such as the aforementioned, would be concerns of privacy since once something is posted on the Internet, it rarely goes away.
In the case of the teacher on the west coast, Flickr would be best used as a survey of all of the exhibits in the museum before concentrating on a just a couple. An example of a successful virtual tour on Flickr is that of Westminster Hall (2012). This is successful because the pictures give the survey and then on the bottom there is a link to a video feed that enables a real-time video virtual tour.
On the other hand, the west coast teacher can also use YouTube to give her students the virtual tours of the museums. One thing to note about Youtube is that most of the items posted are videos with audio and the primary user of that account has the ability to make the videos private so that they do not get into the wrong hands. A great example of a prolific virtual tour using YouTube is on BYU' virtual tours YouTube channel (2012). The virtual tours noted here are on a broad scale, meaning that they survey the campus of Brigham Young University, while others only tour specific landmarks at the university.
In conclusion, I would suggest that the teacher utilize a blend of all of the technologies mentioned in order to deliver the best experience of a virtual tour possible. This is important because some students may not be familiar with the subject matter. With this unfamiliarity, sometimes words cannot give the full explanation to clarify. Therefore, audio and video clips can explain what words cannot. An excellent example of this idea occurred during my student teaching experience. I was teaching fourth grade and we were doing a unit on carnivorous plants. Since I live in Las Vegas, the land is very dry, however, the plants being studied grew in marshes and swamps. So to give the students a better understanding of these saturated lands, I found a couple of online videos of those plants in their natural habitats and showed them to the class.
References
BYU. (Producer). (2012). BYU virtual tours [Video]. Available from YouTube.
Laureate. (Producer). (2012). The technology of distance education [Interactive Multimedia]. Available from Walden University.
Museum podcasts. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/podcasts/index.asp
Rottnest island podcasts. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.rottnestisland.com/about/podcasts-videos-and-virtual-tours
Wetminster hall virtual tour. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/sets/72157607245529403/
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