Hi! It’s Friday, April 23, 2010 and time for a Virtual Field Trip at ClickSchooling!
Recommended Website:
The Virtual Globe
Age Range: 10 and up (Parents, as always, should preview this site to determine suitability of content.)
Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday! At this website, sponsored by Cambridge University, you can take a free, animated virtual tour of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London and learn about Shakespeare’s plays as well as the life and times of the Globe Theater’s patrons.
When you get to the site, click on the image on the screen. A new page opens that allows you to select the appropriate bandwidth access for your computer. Once you make a selection, a new screen opens and the presentation begins.
This animation is engaging and I encourage you to click on each prompter that appears on the screen to enjoy the full experience and information provided here. If you do, you will begin to view Shakespeare’s productions in an entirely different way – based on the way people lived in the mid-1500′s in England. It provides incredible insight to some of Shakespeare’s individual works as well.
It may take about 30 minutes or more to view the entire presentation.
This site does graphically explain the lack of sanitation facilities in the theater, the stench and filth of a city without sewers, and it describes theater patrons of all walks of life and their antics. It also explains that Shakespeare’s plays competed with other “entertainment” including the popular animal fights of the day. People of the time enjoyed some barbaric practices by today’s standards and it influenced the content of Shakespeare’s plays. So, again, parents should preview the material to determine suitability.
For those of you who may be uncomfortable with the content of the above recommended site, you can take a free virtual tour of a faithfully reconstructed replica of the Globe Theater that was completed in 1997 – it is appropriate for all audiences.
When you get to the site you may have to wait a minute or two for the download, and then you can see a panoramic view of the stage, yard, middle gallery, and upper gallery.
If these virtual tours inspire further interest in Shakespeare, don’t miss Shakespeare Online. It provides a detailed biography of Shakespeare, access to all of his plays and sonnets along with analysis and fun quizzes! Here’s the direct link: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
