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- Readers' Survey 2008 Home
- Best Blog for Educators
- Best Educational Podcast
- Best Virtual Field Trip
- Best Site from Which You Can Download Free Lessons and Materials
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- Top Concern of Parents
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- Who, from the Past or Present, You'd Like to Teach Your Class for a Day
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- The 2008 Readers' Survey was conducted at Edutopia.org March 26-April 30, 2008. Participants responded to questions in their own words, and their answers were tabulated to yield the top three to five vote getters in each category. The top responses for each question appear with voting buttons to encourage our visitors to participate further.
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Readers' Survey 2008: Best Virtual Field Trip
Credit: iStockphoto
Ah, the joys of being there without really having to go there. No crazy bus rides; no cranky parent chaperones; no head counts, mosquitoes, poison ivy, or museum malaise. Reality has its long-established place, of course, but virtual travel offers the ecstasy of learning without the agony of the learning experience.
No big surprises in responses here, except perhaps that National Geographic Xpeditions didn't make the top three (the Smithsonian Institution, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Virtual Field Trips), or that the top two answers are both federal government entities, or that imagination still gets a vote (yes, as one reader noted, "The one in your head!"), or that even in an age when we can fly almost anywhere with Google Earth and not worry about losing our luggage, many educators ("I like to do the real thing") still prefer actual to virtual.
What do you think? Weigh in on the results.
Confusing terminology - These are WEBQUESTS
What you are really referring to are Webquests. Virtual Field Trips has meant an interactive video conference (IVC) with a museum or content provider since about 1980. The Virtual Field Trips site squatted on the name, and Edutopia should know better. This category is "Webquests." Anything else is like saying that "Puffs is the best brand of Kleenex" instead of "tissue."
For Virtual Field Trips - of which you have NONE up there - Barrien County Intermediate does a Teachers Choice Award and recently completed their 2008 survey:
http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/dl/teacherschoice/2008.htm
Additionally, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) is probably the best recognized IVC Field Trip clearninghouse internationally. They have an extensive database, and work hand in hand with the US Distance Learning Association (USDLA) to hand out awards for National Distance Learning Week: http://www.cilc.org/c/misc/ndlw_nominees.aspx
It would be great in the future for Edutopia to support our distance learning communities by including a Field Trips category. But THIS category needs to be called "Webquests" and not VFTs.
Editor's Note
Editor's note: Thanks for your input. The choices listed here were the top vote getters in our annual Readers' Survey. We’ve inserted language to make that more clear.