Guided and interactive factory tours for schools

Abstract

School education today aims at improving the integration of school and professional life. A popular way to provide first hand experiences to students are guided factory tours. Companies are highly interested in establishing contacts to school classes, but guided tours to factories are subject to constraints on both sides. For schools, they require organizational effort, are not easy to integrate into educational routine, and are limited to the factories within reach. For companies, guided tours for school classes are restricted because of safety issues and because they disturb the working processes. Considering these restrictions, interactive guided factory tours are a valuable opportunity, as they enable school classes to actively take part in guided factory tours via internet. This paper discusses the technical, organizational, and pedagogical requirements of guided and interactive factory tours, presenting an interaction model, a role set, a technical solution, and best practices. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.