Virtual visits are WorldWide Web pages made from visitors' field trip photos, recordings and writings.  They are made by students using computers, cameras, tape recorders and possibly other technology.  Unlike virtual tours or virtual field trips, they represent the visitors' point of view, which may not be the viewpoint of those responsible for the place visited. Both virtual visits and virtual tours enable other students who view the visit on the Web to get important information and experience which might not otherwise be available to them.

Below are links to several virtual visits. As you look at them consider how they :

• enable students to learn about services, products or job opportunities,

for example in a hospital, clinic, bank, library, state capitol, or store;  and

• help teachers to integrate the WorldWide Web into their curriculum.

Following the links below are steps for creating a virtual visit,how  students and teachers can engage in a Web-based learning project even with limited experience using technology.

Queens Bees Classroom Virtual Visit

Also, visit E-Square (An Electronic Square for Adult Learners)

The Web sites below are well-made virtual tours which may be of interest to adult learners, but were not made by them.
 

Virtual Tours is a collection of tours for the World, Museums, Exhibits, Points of Special Interest and the US Government.

Virtual visits have some common elements:

1) The virtual visit project begins with students' interest in learning more about a particular place, for example a workplace, government agency, community service agency, or store.

2) A great deal of planning and preparation take place before the actual visits are made.

3) Students, usually with a teacher, visit the place of interest at least once to do interviews, take pictures, and gather print information.

4) After the actual visits the information collected is used to build Web pages, not to record the visit but to provide an opportunity for others to visit this place virtually. Often one or more students may be involved in building the Web pages.

5) The Web pages use images, illustrations, and sometimes sound files of those interviewed, as well as written text.

6) The visitors' (usually students') point of view is made clear. They usually introduce themselves and explain why they made the visit.
 

Examples include:

1) Workplaces

While these virtual visits might include information about products or services for clients or customers, their focus could also be information about jobs available, preparation for those jobs, nature of the work, and employer expectations.

Each one could include a link to the Department of Labor O*Net Web site with detailed information on the job types and categories. There are several ways in which sites might be used:

• introduction to the (North American) world of work;
• introduction to an industry type, or job categories within the industry;
• job readiness training; and/or
• English language learning.


2) Community Service Organizations

These virtual visits are to help hose who would use the services better understand what services are available and how best to access them. Some may be commercial; some may be government or other public sector services. For example, there could be virtual visits to public schools, community colleges, neighborhood libraries, health care facilities, and other community sites.

3) Stores

A computer store may be an intimidating place for some people. A virtual visit, before making an actual visit, can help prepare students for what they might find, and equip them with information, vocabulary, and concepts they will need before they consider buying a computer.

4) Government agencies

Students can visit state and federal agencies virtually before they visit in person, or for those who can not make actual visits, they can at least get a feel for what these agencies look like, and what they do.
 

Visitors might include, among others:

• students in adult literacy, basic or secondary education programs;
• those who are learning English as a second or other language;
• adults who live in assisted housing or in homeless shelters;
• adults visiting community technology centers or public libraries where they have access to the World Wide Web; or
• parents and children in family literacy programs.

Beginning steps:

1) Identify students who are interested in the project;

2) Choose a kind of site to visit, one which is of high interest to students;

3) Identify their purposes for visiting the site, the students' initial questions;

4) identify actual sites which might be of interest, and which would allow interviews and taking pictures;

5) Identify purposes of the Web pages to be made, e.g. to help other students learn about the jobs at this worksite, to help others learn about the services provided, to enable others to experience a place of historic importance, or to prepare others for an actual visit.

6) cost out a budget which includes: teacher and student planning and site visit time, equipment, editing time, etc.;

7) identify a server to put the virtual visit on; and

8) If needed, write a proposal to seek funding.
 

9) Identify students and teachers roles (photographer, interviewer, information recorder, editor, Website designer);

10) Do initial site visit(s);

11) Storyboard the Web pages scenario.  When visitors go to the Web pages, what will they see first, what next, then what?  Will this be like a tour?  Will it be a series of topic-oriented interviews?  Will it highlight a particular set of services or products which will be examined and discussed?  Help the students to visualize -- and draw -- what the site will look like;

12) make multiple visits to do interviews, collect print information and take pictures.
 

13) write, scan and edit or polish materials;

14) create Web pages;

15) put the virtual visit up on the Web.

Other Preparation Considerations

In developing a virtual visit project, consider including the following:

• include at least two, or ideally several, varied sites. For example, if a group of students chooses health care sites, they might include a neighborhood clinic, hospital, and a long-term care facility. This will provide an opportunity to compare and contrast the services, work, and/or working conditions.
• include basic information about the work done, services, products, and kinds of jobs
• include the virtual visit designers as a subject in the scenario (their pictures, their assumptions, their backgrounds, what they learned from making the scenario)
• as much as possible, use an ethnographic approach where different points of view are represented (including the makers' own words in print and read aloud), where images (tools, equipment, furniture, work clothes, etc.) illustrations, and examples are used instead of narrative. The culture of the workplace should also be a subject.
• have language learning scaffolding (words in hypertext pronounced in English, defined, with illustrations or images which make their meaning clear, with links to related information)

include informal, colloquial language. This might, for example, include sub vocal thoughts or asides in comic book style balloons

The purpose of these scenarios is to suggest what may be possible in making a virtual visit.  None of these exists as an actual virtual visit.

1) Enrique, a recent immigrant from Central America, takes classes at a learning center in New York City where he can learn English for daily living and preparing for work. In his country, he worked in a small restaurant as a cook, and he wants to continue this kind of work here. He wants to know what kinds of jobs are available, what restaurant workers do, how much they are paid, if there are benefits, if there are jobs available, and what the qualifications are for those jobs. He wants to see the inside, get a feel for the place, the work.

Enrique's teacher suggests they use the World Wide Web to do a virtual visit so he can see what a New York hotel kitchen looks like. He sees moving images of cooks and food preparation workers, reads or listens to interviews with workers and their supervisors, and finds answers to his questions. Although Enrique cannot read most of the text in English, he learns a lot from the pictures and the key words. And he appreciates the Spanish language option where he can listen to a translation of the interviews in his first language.

2) Winifred wants to learn about buying a home. In her English class they have been reading home buying readiness materials which also help her to improve her English language skills. One of the students wonders what it would be like to visit a Realtor, and the teacher suggests they virtually visit a local real estate office.

Together they follow an interactive Quicktime Video where a broker asks "What kind of housing are you interested in? Do you want to purchase a home?" Winifred clicks "Yes," and the virtual broker asks "Are you interested in a house? A condominium? A cooperative?" Winifred clicks on "cooperative" and the virtual broker describes one. Winifred reads some of the explanation, then decides she wants to listen to it read aloud to her. She chooses the English option. Then she returns and reads the text herself.

Several days later, Winifred is back with the virtual real estate broker to learn even more details about a specific house she'd like to buy and her availability for a mortgage. Later, their teacher asks her to explain what she has learned to everyone in the class.

3) Jean works as a basic level ESOL teacher at a community based organization. He has access to computers and has had a little experience with the Internet. He'd like to integrate computers into his classroom work, but hasn't been able to develop a project with any longevity. He and his students occasionally do short, computer-based activities, but Jean is troubled by a lack of continuity between computer-based activities and the language learning activities he uses in class. He asks himself "How can I integrate the computer into my classroom practice in away that supports what I've always been doing, and doesn't feel like it's an interruption in the flow of the class?"

Since Jean and his class have been discussing health-related issues, he wonders if a visit to a doctor's office might be the basis for a virtual visit. He thinks that if his students created a Web page, another class of beginning level students might be interested in seeing what they produced and discussing their reactions.....Jean wonders if there are other teachers nearby with whom he could work to develop his own computer skills (especially around telecommunications and the World Wide Web) so he could actually begin to design a Web site with his students.

Some of the materials for this page were developed by and with Tom Macdonald and Akira Kamiya. An article about Virtual Visits, by David Rosen and Tom Macdonald appeared in the Summer 1998 Issue of Bright Ideas,  a newsletter of the Massachusetts System for Adult Basic Education Support (SABES) and is available from World Education, 44 Farnsworth St., Boston, MA 02210 (617) 482-9485