Educational travel: A segment of the tourism industry that focuses on the educational content of a trip. Trips are designed to include famous landmarks, demonstrate historical events, and/or introduce cultural experiences. Tours may be domestic or international.
Travel is a unique and profound way to emphasize lessons, especially to young individuals. Educational trips may allow students to visit a famous or historical landmark, literally trace the steps of a history lesson, practice learning a language, or experience firsthand the traditions of a foreign culture.
Every travel opportunity can lend itself to a lesson learned. “One of the benefits of travel is the eye-opening realization that there are logical, civil, and even better alternatives.” (6)
Types of Educational Travel
Family Vacations
Many families try to incorporate an educational component to their family trips. Outside of the historical lessons, families can also instill core values and lessons while away from home. “Travel can help a family absorb more than just facts. It can help people empathize with the experiences of others.” (2)
Group Tours
There is a niche of tour operators that focus on providing education tours for groups. They are often targeted to middle and high school age groups. Schools, individual teachers, religious organizations, or clubs typically lead such groups. Popular organizations include ACIS (1), EF (4), and NETC (5).
Study Abroad
Exchange programs or study abroad experiences allow students a longer-term visit to a location. Typically these programs can run from a week to year. Students may stay with a host family, on their own, or in dormitories. The goal with such programs is to fully immerse into the culture. “A critical dimension of achieving intercultural understanding and competence is personal experience.” (3)
References
(1) ACIS
(2) Allee, Judith Waite and Melissa Morgan (2002). Educational Travel on a Shoestring : Frugal Family Fun and Learning Away from Home. Colorado Springs, CO: Shaws Books.
(3) Cushner, Kenneth (2004). Beyond Tourism: A Practical Guide to Meaningful Educational Travel. Toronto: ScarecrowEducation.
(4) EF
(5) NETC
(6) Steves, Rick (2005). Rick Steves’ Italy 2006. Emeryville, CA: Avalon Travel Publishing.
See Also:
Tourism
Outdoor education
Travel documentary
Adventure travel
Student Exchange program
International student
International education
Intercultural communication
Study abroad
STA Travel
This is a well thought out entry. I was surprised that it wasn’t posted on Wikipedia already. I like how you broke out the primary subject and then followed with the subs.
ReplyDeleteMy only suggestion is to make the overview of “Educational Travel” more succinct (I’m learning this with my posts). Here’s an idea:
Educational travel: A segment of the tourism industry that focuses on the educational content of a trip. Trips are designed to include famous landmarks, demonstrate historical events, and introduce cultural experiences. A unique and profound way to emphasize lessons.
Educational trips allow students to visit domestic and international destinations. Tracing the steps of a history lesson, practicing learning a language, or understanding firsthand the traditions of a foreign culture are all part of the experience.
I enjoyed the topic and the writing is solid.
ReplyDeleteThis essay could have been expanded though. How about some examples of educational stops? Washington D.C., New York, Paris, Berlin and most anywhere.
Maybe a travel guide’s top educational stops. A list of places that are visited for educational purposes and why they are so popular would have been a nice touch.
Also under the family portion, the most educational part of travel is the geography lesson.
As someone who has traveled the world with work, getting a chance to experience the different cultures and to know what places – how they look, smell and feel -- is more powerful and memorable than any book. When students say they are taking a trip and going to miss my class, I always ask where because in most cases the trip is going to be more educational than any class.
As Prof. Kalm mentioned in my post, the inclusion of rich detail makes the statement even more powerful.
Overall, this is an interesting and taken-for-granted topic.
Again, I can only build on your classmates. You found a great topic. You could condense what you’ve written. You could add more.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing great work Audrey. I use both the algorithm and Wiki to counter ideas that writing is only subjective. If I don’t have all I need on my trip after following your instructions, then you failed me. If Julia fails me with her power equipment instructions, I could lose a finger.
Your Wikipedia entry too, if you decide to publish, and you should try with this one, will either stand up as the best written article on Educational Travel or other people will start improving on it.
Publishing on the Wikipedia teaches you how to write this kind of article. Not only do you open your factual writing to criticism and improvement, but inserting the article into Wikipedia will expand your understanding of research and your article’s subject.
All Wikipedia articles have links within the body. Exterior links only occur in the Exterior Links and Sources sections at the article’s end. Any links within your article must link to other Wikipedia pages. You also have to link other Wikipedia pages back to your article.
It makes you think about where your knowledge fits within all knowledge. Your list of See Also references does the same thing.
Then, at the top of each article, there are tabs which lead to the history of each article, the past forms it has taken, and what issues in phrasing and knowledge editors are debating within the article.
Behind each article there is an interactive conversation.
All of this expands your ideas on what you are writing about. As with any writing, the process is a rich resource.
Work on it some more, compare it to other articles on travel, and try publishing.
Well done.