Improving your online classes by bringing the virtual world into your virtual classroom.

Improving your online classes by bringing the virtual world into your virtual classroom.

Today, for the first time in the history of the world, a huge percentage, if not the majority of students are studying their regular school classes online due to the CORONA VIRUS.

This new, unique yet devastating situation has created a new daily reality not only for students, but for the millions of school, university and institute teachers in countries all over the world who never ever contemplated teaching online classes.

Teachers who are normally totally at home in their classroom, comfortable and confident with the methodology that they have perfected over the years, giving Hi5s to their students for encouragement, chatting with the kids in the playground during the breaks and having meetings with their peers in the teachers' room now find themselves physically alone, cut off from everything that they know and feel comfortable with, yet expected to achieve the same results in the world of virtual education.

For those teachers who had never prepared for this, and who were then given just a short period of time to prepare and perfect their classes, then this new reality can be like walking through a dark tunnel looking for the light at the end that will illuminate and clarify their reality.

The beauty of the internet is that there are literally thousands of platforms, apps and websites that can help the teachers who are new to online teaching, no matter their subject, to adapt in a way that achieves some form of success. But the one thing that is always missing in this scenario, the thing that teachers normally rely upon is reality, the real world, their classroom and the sensations which accompany it.

Whilst that reality is but a fond yet distant memory during this period of virtual education, it is still possible to bring elements of the real world into your classroom. It is possible, through virtual tours, for teachers to take their students to the best art galleries in the world, to visit the most famous museums in different countries or even some of the world's most popular zoos.  How would you like to visit the Great Wall of China, Macchu Picchu in Peru or the pyramids in Egypt for History class and then creating a project around the experience? What about a tour of the Louvre in Paris for art classes or the aeronautical section of the Smithsonian for physics class. The options are only limited by the teachers' imagination.

Below are links to a few of the hundreds of virtual tours that are available in the world. If you don't find the tour that you want on this list, then a simple search in GOOGLE will open your world to the hundreds of options available all over the world.

I hope that you find something of interest below

Museum Tours: Google Arts & Culture is a great resource for any art fan (with limited access to art with over 2,500 museums) and it's especially handy for those who rely on a quiet museum visit to gather their thoughts. There you'll find comprehensive tours of popular destinations like the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and London's Tate Modern (if you think you hate museums, start with the Tate!).

If it's specific artists you seek, maybe start with a visit to the Frida Khalo Museum, or a check out this Rembrandt exhibit or stop through the Van Gogh Museum. If you love fashion, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City offers plenty of online-only exhibits on designers like Rei Kawakubo and Coco Chanel. But beyond Google, the Louvre in Paris has its own virtual tour resources, and so does the Vatican. Speaking of castles-turned museums, The Prague Castle also offers virtual walkthroughs.

Major Tourist Attractions: As we sit at home and miss our regular vacations, we remember all the great trips we've taken in the past and lament upon the ones we will have to postpone. Take the time to relive past adventures and take new ones with virtual tours of major attractions around the world. You can tour the Colosseum, the Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, and Christ the Redeemer. You can also take a virtual hike on the Great Wall of China, through The China Guide.

24-Hour Live Feeds: Do you want to know what exactly is going on in Times Square, right this second? Wouldn't it be nice to stream a panoramic view of Paris during the workday?

This isn't exactly a tour, but around the clock live feeds are fairly common for highly-trafficked areas, like this live stream of Paris from the top of the Penninsula Hotel. You can watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle in real-time. You can also watch over Time Square any time with this live feed or watch ships pass through the Panama Canal with this one.

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Nature Walks: The National Parks Service partnered with Google to follow a handful of park rangers through some of America's most stunning and challenging terrains, from the Alaskan Glaciers to Utah's Bryce Canyon. 

In addition, a handful of conservation efforts have developed virtual tours of some of America’s most emblematic landscapes. Start with the Nature Conservancy of Oklahoma's virtual field trip – you have to see for yourself just how soothing these views can be. Sit by a sunny window and let our eyes feast on clear blue skies, red clay formations, and fields of wildflowers. For a Google-free walk among the trees, the National Parks Service has a very robust virtual tour of Yellowstone National Park: the park has nine webcams strewn about, one of which has a Livestream feed.

For a less obvious version of a nature walk: roam a classic English garden or roam around the ghost towns of Nevada.

Virtual Tours with NASA: Now is as good a time as ever to think about life beyond planet Earth and NASA is a leader in not just space exploration but in visualization. You can explore the tour on desktop, but if you want to experience the tour in its greatest form, use a smartphone and download Google Expeditions for an augmented reality trip to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. This is a thorough and comprehensive, 360-degree tour for NASA novices and aircraft enthusiasts. You can also give yourself a tour of the Hubble Space Telescope's mission operation center.

But you're here to see stunning images of outer space. NASA's lesser-known specialty is visualization (where scientists work with graphic designers and artists to come up with the most accurate depiction of what they're studying). The TRAPPIST-1 system is home to seven Earth-sized exoplanets that look very cool. You can learn about how our understanding of these planets changes with every new discovery in this 360 YouTube experience. But if you want colorful stars and planets, check out the Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

Virtual Adventures: Virtual dives are an unusual experience and thanks to the National Marine Sanctuaries, you can explore the blue depths of the American Samoas, the Florida Keys, Monterey Bay, and many others. For real-time adventures, check in with the New England Aquarium to see live feeds of the marine life they take care of.

Below is a quick list of just a few of the museums, zoos and aquariums that offer some of the most imaginative virtual tours in the world.

Museums

The Louvre: You don't have to book a ticket to Paris to check out some of the famous pieces in the world's largest art museum. The Louvre has free online tours of three famous exhibits, including Egyptian Antiquities.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: The works of Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jeff Koons, and Franz Marc are just some of the 625 artists whose work are a part of the Guggenheim's Collection Online. 

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Move at your own pace through the 360-degree room-by-room tour of every exhibit in the museum.

Van Gogh Museum: You can get up close and personal with the impressionist painter's most famous work thanks to Google Arts & Culture.

Getty Museum: Los Angeles's premiere gallery has two virtual tours, including "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry," which is a closer look at food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The Vatican Museum: The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, and Raphael's Room, are just some of the sites you can see on the Vatican's virtual tour.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum: Madrid's must-see art museum has the works of some of the continent's most celebrated artists like Rembrandt and Dali available online.

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum: Six virtual exhibits are available online from this museum named for the "Mother of American modernism."

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City: Dive into the pre-Hispanic history of Mexico with 23 exhibit rooms full of Mayan artifacts.

British Museum, London: The Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies are just a couple of things that you're able to see on a virtual tour of the museum.

NASA: Both Virginia's Langley Research Center and Ohio's Glenn Research Center offer online tours for free. Also, you can try some "augmented reality experiences" via The Space Center Houston's app.

National Women's History Museum: Have a late International Women's Day celebration with online exhibits and oral histories from the Virginia museum.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Though the Met Gala was cancelled this year, you can still have a peak at the The Costume Institute Conversation Lab, which is one of the institution's 26 online exhibits.

High Museum of Art, Atlanta: This museum's popular online exhibits include "Civil Rights Photography" — photos that capture moments of social protest like the Freedom Rides and Rosa Park's arrest.

Detroit Institute of Arts: Mexican art icon Frida Kahlo is the focal point of two of the four available online exhibits.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Golden Age of Dutch art is highlighted in this museum which includes the work of Vermeer and Rembrandt.

 National Museum of the United States Air Force: You can't take a ride in Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential airplane, but you can check it out, in addition to other military weapons and aircraft, online in the Air Force's official museum.

MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art): New York's extensive collection is available for view online.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The 16 virtual exhibits include a special section on 21st Century Designer Fashion.

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Zoos and Aquariums

The Cincinnati Zoo: Check in around 3 p.m., because that's the time the Zoo holds a daily Home Safari on its Facebook Live Feed.

 Atlanta Zoo: The Georgia zoo keeps a "Panda Cam" livestream on its website.

Georgia Aquarium: Sea-dwellers like African penguins and Beluga Whales are the stars of this aquarium's live cam.

Houston Zoo: There are plenty of different animals you can check in on with this zoo's live cam, but we highly recommend watching the playful elephants.

The Shedd Aquarium: This Chicago aquarium shares some pretty adorable behind-the-scenes footage of their residents on Facebook.

San Diego Zoo: With what may be the most live cam options, this zoo lets you switch between koalas, polar bears, and tigers in one sitting.

Monterey Bay Aquarium: It can be Shark Week every week thanks to live online footage of Monterey Bay's Habitat exhibit.

National Aquarium: Walkthrough tropical waters to the icy tundra in this floor-by-floor tour of the famous, Baltimore-based aquarium.

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I hope that these links are able to offer you some insight into the world of virtual tours, and ignite your imagination as an educator. Click a link, have look and see how you can bring some reality into your highly quarantined world of virtual teaching.

Good luck and good teaching.


David White
Managing Director English For You Language Institute Trujillo Peru
Headmaster American School Trujillo Peru.