Abstract:

My presentation showcases a very creative way of engaging students into using a combination of free or inexpensive tools – photos, digital video, lecture capture, visualization and team work to create a web site that offers a virtual trip to a place of interest. Using free web creation software by Weebly my students have designed a unique web site to display their individual assignments as part of a class project created to allow them to participate in a virtual field trip to the MIT Museum.

Simulating a virtual field trip has allowed these digital natives to combine their learning experience in a digital classroom with the real trip to a museum, share the knowledge acquired during the trip with their peers in creative ways by contributing to the creation of a website meant to immerse everyone in this unique experience of choosing, learning and experimenting hands-on with various pieces exhibited in the museum.

Students were assigned to go visit the MIT Museum. Each one had to choose one robot in the exhibit and learn about it, take pictures and/or small video clips, then present their choice in a “virtual gallery”. Using free web creation software, they uploaded their assignments in a web site called Virtual field Trip to the MIT Museum. The idea was that someone who would use the site should get an experience comparable with visiting the museum.
Students have worked as a team to also provide overall information about the museum – directions, hours, admission, general information, historic facts, etc.
This has proved to be an excellent learning experience – students took ownership of this assignment, not only providing amazing pictures, video clips of themselves standing by their chosen items and explaining how they work, but providing links to web sites discussing various aspects of artificial intelligence, applications etc. They have formed this ad-hoc online community to collaborate in the process of designing the virtual field trip and have opened it to the outside world by including a blog who would allow visitors to express their opinions.
My presentations will show the work in progress – the web site at Virtual Field trip with a general assigned log in itech3103 (username) / itech3103 (password).
This presentation can be of interest to a large audience – from the faculty/instructors to the IT support staff to administrators interested in creative ways of exploring reality.