Example 2: Interactive Tours A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?
For this interactive tour there are several technology tools that could be used to help this teacher give her students a tour of prominent New York City museums. The two technology tools I have chosen are You Tube Videos and Virtual Tours of New York City museums (interactive if desired). Simply throwing a slide presentation onto a website may be fast and inexpensive but almost never achieves the anticipated results according to the article, Distance Learning Improves Performance in Troubled Times by Nancy Murphy and Julia Young. A thoughtfully created program should encompass a variety of learning activities that will develop skills and accelerate time to useful applications. Organizations are moving towards the virtual world of training and the traditional training and management roles are becoming faint.
According to our text, Teaching and Learning at a Distance, technologies are tools that must be mastered to be effective. Electronic methods used to connect the instructor, students and resources are telecommunications technologies. These can be categorized in two ways, telecommunications technologies and instructional technologies. If an instructor selects the correct media when designing online instruction it will maximize efficiency and make room for various resources and additional learning experiences. The power of the Web can be employed through the use of Web 2.0 applications which are tools that contribute to learner engagement and higher-order learning. Because many instructors incorporate technology into their daily activities, web tools cannot be used effectively by learners without proper instruction on their use. Training is essential at the beginning of an online course to ensure learners know how to use the technology tool. There are four strategies for online delivery that must be used in organizing instruction and they are linear-programmed instruction, branched-program instruction, hyper-programmed instruction, and student-programmed instruction. Schroeder (2007) believed that virtual environments “built on the very premises of online engagement and interaction” will ultimately replace the World Wide Web.
Using You Tube as a technology tool to help solve the teacher’s issue of having her learners take a tour of prominent New York City museums and critique paintings would be well served. You Tube was founded in February 2005 where anyone can upload video files from anywhere to view and is one of the most visited sites on the web according to our text, Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Also, several instructors upload video-based lecture recordings and other course materials for learners to see. Since video recording capabilities are built into most digital devices, cell phones and computers with video editing tools, the possibilities of student learning activities are unending. You Tube is a popular online video-sharing web site for both scholarly and non-scholarly communication as mentioned in the article by the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice, An Assessment of Faculty Usage of You Tube as a Teaching Resource. The article discusses a pilot study that was performed to determine faculty’s current and potential utilization of You Tube in their classes; identify faculty perceptions of the benefits of You Tube as a health education resource for in-class and online courses and to identify potential limitations and challenges of this online source. The faculty considered You Tube to be an effective resource for enhancing their health education course material. This study also suggested that You Tube may be a viable, innovative resource for use by university faculty in health education and other disciplines. Research has shown that a more productive and enriched learning environment for classrooms is one that incorporates technology. You Tube establishes a sense of classroom community while integrating relevant content and encouraging learners to use this tool to achieve better learner outcomes. This tool addresses the new millennium learners of today. According to this study nearly 79% of college learners feel the internet has a positive impact on their college experience. We must keep in mind the limitations of this technology tool as well. Posting copyrighted material is prohibited by U.S. copyrighted laws, searching for appropriate or content-specific clips may be challenging, since this is an unrestricted platform instructors must make sure the content used is from a credible source (a disclaimer should be added to any You Tube links) and computer hackers sometimes upload Spyware and viruses through online videos. The benefits far outweigh the limitations. Some benefits of You Tube are instructors can greatly expand their educational audiences even to international learners, learners and educators can access real-life demonstrations of applicable skills, guest speaker presentations for lectures can be posted, and this tool can be restricted to learners in a particular course as well. The most important aspect of You Tube is that it is FREE! With today’s budget restraints in education this is another tool that will not cost a penny.
The second technology tool this instructor can use to assist in giving her learners the maximum experience of visiting prominent New York City museums is a virtual tour of the museum. In Iowa the success to their distance education system is the concept of sharing as discussed in our text, Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Iowa uses live, two-way interaction telecommunication with hundreds of classrooms being connected for effective learning. Scholastic.com published a great article, Virtual Field Trips, which states more schools are using videoconferencing to lead virtual field trips to venues such as museums, zoos and exotic lands. There is a lot of stimulation outside the classroom and the beauty of virtual field trips is that they can be customized for learners and the educational goals of the instructor. Tours can actually be planned specific to an instructors needs. Another advantage is that virtual visits deepen learner’s understanding of what they are studying in the traditional classroom. The most exciting benefit of virtual field trips is that learners can travel around the world without ever leaving their classroom and no need for a passport. The question with this technology tool is do these virtual tours actually help learners understand content better? The answer according to Janine Lim, instructional technology consultant at Berrien RESA in Berrien County, Michigan at the time this article was written, is absolutely. If kids keep talking about a virtual tour they experienced year after year then the goal was met in giving learners a learning experience they will always remember. No matter what approach schools may take to videoconferencing the achievement goes up when virtual trips are well-integrated, based on educational standards, and tied tightly to the curriculum. A great event won’t leave any child behind. Learners are attentive, engaged, and absorbed in virtual tours. Learners who may not normally excel in the traditional classroom seem to come to life when exposed to virtual tours. Below is a link to a New York City museum web site that has a special place for educators. The Metropolitan Museum of Art not only offers virtual interactive tours but also links for kids, teens, adults, college learners, educators and visitors with disabilities. There are workshops and events online and print and other resources. Lesson plans, pre-visit guides and curriculum resources are also at your fingertip. Take a tour of the website and enjoy the interactive tutorials as well. Also the 2012 Frieze Art Fair in New York City is another avenue for learners to explore art and find pieces that will be interesting to evaluate.
In closing, You Tube and virtual tours are excellent tools for this instructor to make sure her learners are exposed to prominent art museums in New York City. These technology tools will also give several options for learners to choose several pieces of art to critique and also use the interactive tools to give them more content rich information on pieces of art.
References
Burke, S., Snyder, S., Rager, R.C. (2009). As Assessment of Faculty Usage of You Tube as a Teaching Resource. The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice. January 2009, Volume 7 Number 1. Retrieved from http://ijahsp.nova.edu/articles/Vol7Num1/burke.htm
Murphy, N. and Young, J. (February 2009). Distance learning improves performance in troubled times. Retrieved from http://www.facilitate.com/support/facilitator-toolkit/docs/VirtualLearningImprovesPerformance.pdf Scholastic.com.
Virtual Field Trips. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/virtual-field-trips
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning At A Distance: Foundations of Distance Education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson
The 2012 Frieze Art Fair. New York City. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators
Click here view one of many videos provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Click here to watch a You Tube video of the 2012 Frieze Art Fair in New York City. (for viewing purposes only, does not reflect my opinions regarding the art fair)
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