Don't Forget Virtual Tours

Over the course of the past 2 years, I had been looking to break free from renting to join the world of home ownership. At this very moment, I'm blogging from my new living room while mulling over the whole home buying process as it relates to eLearning. A large majority of the house hunting took place online: utilizing online databases to find the houses that meet my location and budget requirements, taking virtual tours, searching for loans and interest rates, and even browsing financial paperwork and contracts via email (to name a few). Mostly, this process was an individualized exploration process which encouraged learning for one very specific purpose.

My focus: virtual tours. I imagine that i viewed 100 (or so) virtual home tours and a dozen in person. It was so much fun exploring the various details of homes; all the possibilities. Comparing what I liked to what I don't like; creating a little wishlist. I could immediately see if there was interest in pursuing a house farther, or if I wanted to explore other avenues.

So it dawned on me that the concept of the virtual tour often escapes my mind in the education realm. What I often seek, instead, are opportunities to implement new and "hip" technology in the classroom. After all, I've been writing/reading predominantly on mLearning and open source software. But virtual tours have been around for quite some time (1994 according to wikipedia) and provide that visual for learning that we (or I) often forget.

• Virtual tours can be a literal video type tour (Waldorf Haunted Hotel) or a 360° view through a company, castle, business, car or house (Pocono Community Church).
• The same can be done by clicking through a series of pictures incorporated into powerpoint/presentation-type software or an image mapped web page (Bloomsburg University).
• There's an online example of the paper making process that was a simple word document.
  
• Perhaps a virtual tour through the uses/functions of a software package like this Flash demo.

Back to the house...the learning process continues. Updated information and adjustments to my knowledge as a new home owner is required. I've already encountered online information regarding frozen pipes (gawh!)...yes, I'm excited to discover learning potential this spring.