Virtual Field Trips Return

My friend Nancy shared the following info with me:

"Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing and Ball State University have entered into a three-year exclusive partnership to provide students in schools nationwide with the opportunity to interact with S&S authors and illustrators via live, interactive web broadcasts called "Electronic Author Visits" (EAV). The EAVs employ BSU's MyVisit virtual classroom's Electronic Field Trips program, which allow for live video, discussion forums, and downloadable teacher information and in-class activities. Under the deal, S&S plans to host three EAVs per year, with author Andrew Clements (Frindle and No Talking) kicking off the program on March 18. Also signing on to participate in EAV are D.J. MacHale (the Pendragon series) and Margaret Peterson Haddix (Shadow Children). Booksource has signed on as the sponsoring book supplier."

It sounds remarkably like the Turner Adventure Learning virtual field trips that we worked on in the mid-90s - though I suspect that the lower costs of video/audio conferencing due to more prevalent, classroom-based technology might enable them to be more profitable/successful than TAL ultimately was.