The virtual field trip as a teaching strategy in the music clasroom and in other disciplines. Strenghts and limitations

The pedagogical value of field trips has been pointed out by countless experts, even since Ancient Greece, a culture in which music was a particularly valued discipline. Nevertheless, the frequency of field trips in today’s educational centres is often limited due to economic and logistic difficulties, among other causes. The virtual alternative of field trips eliminates many of the problems entailed in planning and delivering this activity, while maintaining the benefits of traditional field trips and offering opportunities worth exploring. A definition of virtual field trips is approached in this paper, as well as an analysis of its most significant strengths and limitations, based on experiences and reflections found in related literature in the last fifteen years. Given our area of specialisation, music education, we pay special attention to the advantages and disadvantages that this teaching strategy may have in the music classroom. A specific section of the paper includes examples of music related virtual field trips that can be of interest to music teachers of all levels.