Museums?

Hi - I work at The Museum of Modern Art as the Director of Digital Learning- and we are trying to think of new ways to help K-12 teachers more on our website (www.moma.org). What can we provide/create for teachers?

We have teacher guides - we wonder if they should be broken up more into smaller segments?
Do teachers need/want a section of the website dedicated to teachers or do they look across the website for resources? Or both? How can we help with lesson plans and ideas and support for teaching with images? What's an example of a successful museum resource that you have used in the classroom?

Tags: MoMA, art, images, museum

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Permalink Reply by John Altieri on October 23, 2009 at 10:00pm

Hi! Thanks for asking! :-) Cool. So you are the experts on artwork, curating, design and you must have great stories about the work, the artists... Maybe you could offer chances to do Q&A over Skype. I'd love to do this. Kids in the classroom, you in the museum (and then switch that!). So many specific themes that connect with school projects to offer this for... and in this collaboration, students might be more motivated if they knew a museum curator would see their work!

The threads of connectivity that we experience through this ed2.0 world are lines of story, and a work of art themselves. The John Lennon exhibit downtown has that phone in the room that tells you if it rings, pick it up, it's Yoko. That's intense! and it captures our imagination because it creates a direct connection with the work, with the artist! Web 2.0 offers these capabilities. Let us in the museum through YouTube, Skype. I'd love to watch an installation get put in, or how-to's on anything really... kids want to be great artists and they want to try things out.

And I'll ask my students and let them know you're asking - and I let you know what they say. What question would you like to ask them specifically? because they're who this learning is for.

John Altieri
http://altierisclass.ning.com/
http://opensourcereading.ning.com/
http://willardgreen.ning.com/

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Permalink Reply by Beth Harris on October 27, 2009 at 6:09am

Hey John, Thanks for your reply! MoMA has a great channel on YouTube with lots of behind-the-scenes videos including installations. Would love to know what you think of them in terms of their educational value - and if there is anything we can add to what we're doing there to help teachers.

And I appreciate your offer to ask the students - but it was really teachers we were reaching out to - teachers who are using images who are looking for information about art - how can we help them with lesson plans, teacher guides, images, information, videos etc - what is it that teachers need to help them prepare learning activities around art/images...

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Permalink Reply by Katherine Bolman on October 25, 2009 at 5:15pm

Some recent research seems to suggest if you have small groups and asked them to do research both in the museum and on the Internet they would learn a great deal more than they do listening to a lecture. As an example they might locate your collection of Monet, see what else they can find out on the Internet, and then create a webpage about the painter. I am creating a history of Art and architecture online and still at the very beginning of time looking forward to getting to modern art in two or three years. I am looking to collaborate with teachers and students and you just might know somebody. So here is the website ahaafoundation.org and it would really be wonderful to hear from you.
Katherine Bolman, PhD

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Permalink Reply by Beth Harris on October 27, 2009 at 6:12am

Hi Katherine - what a great site you have! Need to explore it more, when I'm not trying to rush off to work. In fact, let's email at my non-work email - beth.harris@gmail.com.

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Permalink Reply by Katherine Bolman on October 30, 2009 at 7:44pm

Thank you and I will get back to you.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on October 25, 2009 at 6:04pm

I thought that this was an interesting approach...

http://museumbox.e2bn.org/

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Permalink Reply by Beth Harris on October 27, 2009 at 6:14am

Wow! THat IS interesting - thanks Jonathan. Is this a site you have used in your teaching? Or to prepare?

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Jackson on October 30, 2009 at 8:11pm

Great tool. I think we'll be using this in class. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 27, 2009 at 3:44pm

Beth, I love the idea of using primary sources in the classroom and have given some thought to using museums in my curriculum. As a matter of fact I'm using one right now in my Greek Mythology Unit--- Mythic Creatures:Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids from the American Museum of Natural History. It's the web presence from an older exhibit, but I would like to see good interactive museum exhibits online all the time. Maybe a "Critical Thinking Though the Arts" focus would work.

Another idea I've had is to use Moodle for an online museum-like collaboration project. The student could post an image of artwork, photograph, statue, etc making comments about why they choose it, what it means to them, and then other kids could comment on it.

Also I like the idea of biographies of the artists. N

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Permalink Reply by Beth Harris on October 29, 2009 at 7:29am

Thanks Nancy. MoMA has great exhibition subsites like the one you linked to from the AMNH too - the question we are trying to think through is the use of teacher guides and lesson plans - how to (or whether to) expand them, enhance them - here's a link to the teacher resources we have now. Would love to get some thoughts about this:

http://www.moma.org/modernteachers/

Also, I am assuming you know about Voicethread - which is so great for talking about images...!