About Tramline

Tramline developed TourMaker© software back in 1996. The company was founded by a group of individuals dedicated to creating a tool for education and training that could be used to help to organize the chaos of the Web.

Over the years TourMaker© has earned a reputation as the best tool for creating Virtual Field Trips and Web Tours, providing a host of navigation and orientation aids absent in other field trip formats.

In 1997, Virtual Field Trips Site came into existence and over time, virtual field trips were created and added by educators. This site was developed as a free resource to K-12 educators everywhere. Teacher's resources were added, and trips were age-specific. In the late 1990's, Tramline received a grant from AT&T to create another educational site. This was Virtual Blackboard. Virtual Blackboard enabled Tramline to expand beyond science-related topics, and we then had social studies, math, and literature virtual field trips. Over time, the multiple sites were merged to ease upkeep and maintenance, and to provide one high quality source of information and resources for using and creating virtual field trips.

Educator, Co-Founder, Site Creator

Kim Foley is one of the original founding members of Tramline. As one of the first to work in the area of Virtual Field Trips, Kim brings years of online experience to the table. She received a Master's Degree from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been at the forefront of technological breakthroughs working with High-definition Television (HDTV) back in the 80's, and digital video, when both were in early research stages. Since the early-90's, she has taught computer and digital video courses, produced and co-designed interactive, multimedia packages for major publishers, and managed team software development. Over the past several years, she has developed web-based, virtual field trips for the education market, and designed and maintained several educational sites.

In 2000, Kim branched out to online teaching about virtual field trips and has developed for-credit workshops for teachers which you can read about in the Training section of the site. In 2001, she wrote a book that weaves together many useful tips and suggestions for classroom use of VFTs, the Big Pocket Guide to Using & Creating Virtual Field Trips, geared specifically to K-12 educators and teachers in training.

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Sponsorship Opportunities

Our aim is to keep this site free to educators and everyone else. In order to achieve this goal, Tramline is seeking sponsors and advertisers to support ongoing development of new field trips and maintenance of the site. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact us.

Thank you!
The Tramline Team