Virtual Tours

A virtual tour is either a presentation of pictures, video, or a model. Virtual tours can be of anything, educational or not. Many that would be good for the educational process and in lessons are tours of museums or exhibits, historical sites, zoos, geographical landmarks, and things all over the world. I could use a virtual tour in my classroom when teaching on the Civil War and show the students different battlegrounds from the war. I could also use one when teaching on ancient Greece or Roman history. Virtual tours of the ruins left from that time gives the students a look at what they look like now in the modern world. These virtual tours are great for letting students get a different look on something involved in a lesson. Many students like to watch movies or videos so the use of a virtual tour would grab the students' attention and get them interested in the topic. One bad thing that virtual tours have on them is that there are not always virtual tours of the information you are looking for to present. Another problem that the virtual tours have is that they do not always have the information on them that a teacher is looking for in their lesson plans.

Teacher Web Pages

A teacher Web page is an online site that a teacher uses for many reasons. These reasons could be to have a different form of contact with students and their parents. Students that are absent from class may stay up-to-date on assignments and lessons. For a teacher to have a teacher Web page it is opening up to the community so that there is an involvement and relationship between the community, classroom, teacher, and students. When I am a teacher and have a Web page I will most likely use it for communication between students, their parents, and myself. This communication will be great for instruction on assignments and keeping track of grades for the students. Having a teacher Web page can have many pros and cons. Some pros are that it is another form of communication between parents, students, administrators, and the teacher. Another pro for a teacher Web page is that it allows students, whether they missed class or not, to keep track of assignments and whether they have them done or not. Students can contact teacher for anything dealing with an assignment and grading. Cons of having a teacher Web page are that it does take up a lot of time to maintain and keep up-to-date. A teacher already has a packed schedule so finding the time to have a teacher Web page and work on it everyday is hard for a teacher sometimes. Another con of having a teacher Web page is that sometimes students and parents don't use it because they never have time to check or anything. Because of this the teacher would be wasting time doing something on the page when no one would even be using it, instead of focusing more on the classroom.

WebQuests

A WebQuest is an activity that is web-based and asks students to search online for answers to questions pertaining to the lesson in the classroom being taught. The students go to the WebQuest and click on the link hot-list to search for the answers to questions provided about a lesson from the classroom, therefore integrating the use of technology in the classroom. It is important for teachers to understand and have knowledge of using WebQuests in the classroom, that way students are experiencing different techniques in the process of learning about a topic.
The WebQuests would be good for me to use in the classroom when i become a high school history teacher because students of that age group are very interested in the technological world. Using this technology will help them to become more interested and involved in the learning process. An example of something I would use a WebQuest for in the classroom is to answer questions dealing with a history lesson on the Great Depression. The students could find out more information on the Internet than in the textbook about the causes of the Great Depression, the culture during that time, and how America was brought out of such a slump. This would be a great opportunity for students that have trouble with learning through lecture or other teaching strategies to excel at something that truly interests them.
Some pros of using a WebQuest would be that it integrates a new way of learning into the classroom through technology. The generation of today is one that was practically born at a computer. At an even younger age than before students are excelling at mastering technology so WebQuests are a great tool to use in the classroom in bringing this skill to use. Another pro would be that students would learn more about information on the subject from the Internet than what is presented in the textbooks.
Cons of WebQuests is that as a teacher one must make sure to check that the WebQuest and its resources are valid. Another con is that there are not WebQuests for all areas that students should learn about, so a teacher must choose carefully what they will be using WebQuests for in their lessons. A con that might make teachers not want to use WebQuests for their lessons is the amount of time that they take to complete. Varying versions of WebQuests could take from a single week up to a whole month, therefore taking up valuable time in the classroom for other lessons and learning.