AudioViator - Free Audio Tours of Cities and Landmarks

AudioViator is an excellent collection of audio tours of cities and landmarks all over the globe. All of the tours that I previewed are Creative Commons licensed and available to download for free. You can search for audio tours by keyword or use the map to browse for free audio tours. I used the map to find audio tours of Boston's Freedom Trail and Mount Rushmore.

Applications for Education
If you're taking your students on a field trip, take a look at AudioViator to find an audio tour that your students can use while on that field trip or in preparation for it. You could also use the audio tour files as part of a Google Earth tour. For example, you could take the Mount Rushmore audio file then have students create a visual tour in Google Earth to match the audio tour.

A Live Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island

Last week I received an email from Scholastic about a great virtual field trip opportunity. On March 29, 2012 Scholastic is hosting a live virtual field trip to Ellis Island. The field trip, for students in grades three and above, will be held at 1pm ET, 10am PT. The field trip will take the students on a tour of the island and the Ellis Island Museum. You can register for the event here.

Applications for Education
Scholastic has many good resources to help you prepare your students for the Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island. The Stories of Immigration page includes the personal stories of children immigrating to the United States. On the same page you will also find this Interactive Tour of Ellis Island. For offline activities, Scholastic offers this activity and templates for graphing patterns of immigration.

On a related note, I recommend checking out the Interactive Virtual Tenement Museum.