Use of virtual excursions at secondary schools in Slovakia

Current situation in implementing real excursions at secondary schools is limited by several factors. On one hand, it is the content of the discipline and its assigned time dotation that does not enable implementation of real excursions because of reasons of time; on the other hand, it regards economical limitations, for instance, which prevent students from seeing real environment that would be related to the educational content. Implementation of real excursions is often time-consuming. For the purposes of the future practice of the secondary school graduates it is necessary so that they had opportunities to get acquainted with real environment of their future profession, or opportunities to get acquainted with real professional environment that can influence their future profiling, selection of further education (university education, etc.). Based on the existence of limiting factors in implementation of real excursions and on the need of excursions as a stimulator for further education and work placement of secondary school graduates there emerges the intention of creation of interactive virtual excursions, which could be used both in formal education as a didactic aid based on new technologies and also in extracurricular activities.