This week I had the pleasure of attending a field trip from the comfort of my couch with Google Arts & Culture. The website opens with the question “Where do you want to go today?” and organizes the expeditions by subject. Inspired by a recent field trip to the zoo with our summer STREAM camp students, I ended up on the natural history side of the website on an adventure to “see how animals see.” This expedition allows you to glimpse the world through the point of view of animals with echolocation, compound eyes, color blindness, and much more. Use the QR code below to check it out for yourself.
Virtual field trips proved to be useful in the summer of 2020 when our summer STREAM camp students were virtual because of COVID. However, they are just one of the emerging strategies to implement layered realities into the modern educational experience. Double robotics is another that allows students who are unable to attend in person to navigate school using a robot that travels the building and connects them to teachers and classmates through a camera (Double Robotics, 2015). During the 2020-21 school year when I taught from home, I was projected through the Promethean board while my colleague served as my double, managing the zoom and classroom on my behalf. I regret that I didn’t have access to this technology for that experience, but I can test drive the technology using “Gordon,” a double robot at ODU that can be rented to roam the art exhibits on campus (Donovan, 2021). Click here to see “Gordon” at work in the gallery.
References:
Donovan, C. (2021, March 17). New robot roving around art gallery at ODU, letting viewers explore exhibits. WTKR. https://www.wtkr.com/news/coronavirus/new-robot-roving-around-art-gallery-at-odu-letting-viewers-explore-exhibits
Double Robotics. (2015, June 17). Case Study: Sebasticook Valley Middle School + Double Robotics. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aln1V0rtCkE
That virtual field trip sounds amazing! I’ll have to check it out! Thanks! Great post
I like that your field trip has a specific point of view! How interesting! I like the idea of double robotics, but I also feel like there would be some inevitable kinks in using the technology. I need to check out Gordon!
Fascinating virtual field trip! I will need to add this to my list of things to explore.
I think using Double Robotics would be such an amazing experience for the teacher as well as the students. For example, if a teacher had to be quarantined due to COVID exposure, they could use the robot and teach their lessons. The students would not need a substitute or be split up into other classrooms. I know at my school when a teacher was out for longer than a week, the classroom suffered. All the school would need to provide is a staff member who would monitor the students in person. Since the staff member wouldn’t be teaching, it could easily be a TA.
I was fascinated by the double robot too! It seems amazing that something like that is available to kids who can’t navigate the actual school/campus setting. I love that they can interact with other students as if they were there. What a wonderful window on the world to keep a student from feeling alone and isolated! That’s a great idea to use a double robot to be able to provide instruction while someone supervises the room!
This was a great post , my son was able to attend a virtual field trip during COVID and he was excited to visit the farm.
I love the fact that people are creating colorful QR codes. It’s very eye catching! Using virtual tours for field trips have so many perks though depending I will always want to go to the real thing but there are some places, like going on an over seas trip, were virtual is easier and more accessible.