XIXMuseums and Online Learning

  • DiDi Wiles, The George Washington University

We live in a society that is fully immersed in technology. It’s used to communicate, complete work both professional and educational, bring joy and entertainment, among a slew of other purposes. It has become very difficult to go through the average day without using technology. This was the status quo, until the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. Many people were home bound and if you were in a public space, you were strongly encouraged to practice social distancing. This brought much worry to businesses that thrive off public interaction, museums being a significant example. If businesses and institutions didn’t think quickly about how they were going to continue to reach their audience from their homes, they risked the institution shutting down indefinitely. Schools also had to worry about how they were going to educate their students from their homes, and thus began the immediate rise of online learning, creating new opportunities for museums.

When first introduced, online learning was looked at as a “poor substitute for the traditional classroom learning.”1 Luckily, with the advancement of technology and the internet, web-based learning has significantly improved, thus becoming a useful tool for museums and their outreach initiatives. It became clear that if students could effectively learn from home temporarily, so could museum patrons that missed wandering around their favorite museums. The pandemic and online learning also allowed for those who didn’t have the means or ability to visit these locations to still get valuable information, which significantly broadened institutions’ audiences. To reach these broader audiences, some museums have begun offering distance learning programs. These programs allow museums to increase their reach through technology that is becoming more ubiquitous.2 In 2021, when discussing museum education in general, the American Alliance of Museums stated that in the “United States, museums spend more than $2 billion a year on education…[and] provide more than 18 million instructional hours for educational programs.”3 This statistic shows that museums across the nation have put in a great deal of time, energy, and money to effectively run educational programs that’ll best serve the public. Once it became clear that there was a population of adults who were interested in visiting museums but did not have the access, many museums opted to redirect their focus and money towards online/virtual learning.

This paper will explore the early origins of virtual learning, it’s beneficial qualities, and discuss examples of how some museums have included virtual learning as a public program. Notable examples include the Frick museum and the creation of their YouTube series “Cocktails with a Curator”4 and Italy’s Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art creating a radio show that can be listened to via Soundcloud.5 Online learning has a significant role in maintaining the legacy of a museum while promoting its mission statement, and Covid-19 has only propelled its importance. For this essay, I will be considering any museum program conducted by an educator via the internet with audiences at offsite locations. This includes virtual tours that offer information presented to the audience by an educator both live and pre-recorded. Although the utilization of virtual tours vary based on each institution, arguably, they have the potential to hold the same amount of educational value as any other online program that the museum provides. 

History of Museums and Online Learning

Museums utilizing online learning was a gradual development that surely did not first appear when museums began crafting their institutional websites. “Distance learning is often used as a blanket term that includes online learning, e-learning, technology mediated learning, online collaborative learning, virtual learning, web-based learning” and so on.6 In the early 1990s, some museum websites were initially conceived to be used as “additional display cases” that showcased images of collections or basic visitor information.7 After a few years, museums began to use their websites to interact with their visitors. About 20 years ago, the concept of online learning was introduced, but in the beginning it was not much more than impersonal text-only bulletin boards.8 Museum professionals started to see the benefits of learning through the web when they realized resources like live webinars and asynchronous collaborative environments allowed for learners and educators to interact and work together through an online social presence.9 This realization was emphasized during the winter of 2006 and 2007, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) noticed school group visitation was very limited. The museum decided to seize the opportunity of using their digital resources and the tools that were needed to access such resources by creating their first blended professional development workshop for elementary school teachers where they could meet both online and onsite. The development of the workshop had created new challenges and shifted their thinking beyond the traditional lesson plan, but by partnering with the New York Institute of Technology and the Educational Enterprise Zone (EEZ), solutions were crafted for the problems.10 Starting from the initial experiment conducted at the MET, up until the publication of the article in 2010, the MET had “offered 6 multi-week blended (online/onsite) programs and 15 single-session webinars, reaching over 500 educators from 26 states in the U.S. and 14 countries. [The museum has] also begun to collaborate with other institutions to offer cross-disciplinary online programs.”11 Today, the MET museum’s primary focus is on the in-person experience but the initial experiment had shown the museum the value from both an educational and economic perspective.

Impact of the Pandemic

The closure of museums due to the pandemic forced many to think outside the box in order to keep their audience engaged while still maintaining the goals of their mission statement. The online resources of The Frick Collection, located in New York City, achieves what they strive for in their mission statement: “To provide access, understanding, and enjoyment of the Collection to the public through special exhibitions, publications, education, research, and public programs of the highest caliber.” The Frick Collection created a YouTube Series titled “Cocktails with a Curator.” In this series, viewers can watch “a Frick curator offer insights on a work of art in the collection with a complimentary cocktail.”12 The most recent upload of “Cocktails with a Curator” was a year ago, and unfortunately, there is no further information on the continuation of the series on the museum’s website.

During the pandemic, Italy’s Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (commonly known as GAMeC) created an online radio show, where listeners can receive “information and analysis featuring news, art, literature and society, with both Italian and international voices.” Each episode is a little under or over 40  minutes long. The radio show lasted about 2 months with the first episode airing on March 22, 2020 and the last episode airing on May 26, 2020. The radio show has been discontinued however the episodes are still available on soundcloud.13

As seen in the above examples, the pandemic prompted museums to create alternatives that temporarily replaced in-person visiting. Now that many restrictions have been lifted and museums have continued on with their normal business practices, they must now decide if they want to continue working with the ideas they’ve created during the pandemic, or put an end to them. Based on the discontinuing of many online learning programs, it seems as though many of the programs that were implemented during the pandemic were temporary. However, the online programs that were already in motion prior to the pandemic are still active and are a great resource for many who are home or can’t access the museum.

For staff, particularly the education department, online learning has meant “expanding the role of the educator beyond the traditional role of a museum educator. While educators act as facilitators both during face-to-face and online presentations, the pedagogical strategies used in distance learning programs differ because the forms of interaction have been altered.”14 The pandemic forced many museum educators to expand their role and responsibility significantly, leaving some feeling “overwhelmed, overworked, stressed and undervalued.”15 Although grappling with new technology and programs originally came with difficulties, museums have been presented with the unique opportunity to gather resources and potentially put a digital plan in place, if they decide that it is in the best interest of the museum.

Sharing Online Resources

As mentioned previously, switching to online learning was a very stressful time for many educators. Trying to create and understand new temporary curriculums that would be taught online proved to be a big adjustment. School educators were searching for reliable online resources and programs while museum educators were figuring out how to get the word out about their museum’s new programs. Databases that allowed the public to add resources and blog posts written by other educators became an extremely useful guide for both museum educators and school teachers. The Journal of the American Association of School Librarians website hosts a blog forum where authors can write about various topics. Margaret Sullivan wrote a blog entry titled “ Online Museum Exhibitions as Virtual Learning Resources” 16 and in her post she details her experience looking for resources as well as listing what she found. She lists museums with online programs that she found useful and provides ideas on how others could also utilize those programs. 17 In March of 2021, the website Ecobnb published an article titled “The Importance of Online Museums for Modern Education.” In the article, the author discusses the impact of “Innovative Digitalization” and the role museums play in “today’s world.”18 Towards the end of the article, there are two examples of museums that have provided online exhibitions as well as a link to other free online museums. Many blog posts and articles that discussed museums and online learning would also provide examples of museums that offer online programs and exhibitions.

In April of 2022, under their Eduction Professional Network, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) created a “Distance Learning Database.” The database allowed students and teachers to share their distance learning programs and resources.19 “Users could pull down filters to find the best programs and resources for their needs.” 20 As of February 2021, there were more than 1,350 resources listed in the database spanning across 6 countries and 8 languages. Unfortunately, the database is no longer active but the information can still accessed by contacting the email that is listed.21 This is not the only website that lists resources. MCN’s website provides what they call “The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Museum Resources, E-Learning, and Online Collections.”22 This database has an extensive list of history, art and natural history museums that provide virtual tours, E-Learning, programs catered specifically to kids, etc. If a museum is missing from the list, there is the option of filling out a google form with the museum’s information so it can also be added.

Conclusion

Online learning has become a staple in the way many museums share information with the world. Although it had a slow start, it now provides access to exclusive web-based content (as well information available in person) for a wide range of people. Online learning particularly reaches those who don’t have the means to visit the museum in person thus significantly broadening the museum’s audience. Covid-19 has only amplified virtual learning’s importance. The pandemic has forced most museums to re-evaluate their online learning programs and some have responded by putting in the extra time and money to ensure that their online programs are of the highest quality and to continuously improve them when needed. It also showed the field that although there may be challenges with curating online content and it does take a bit of patience, the benefits outweigh any opposition.

Notes

  1. Crow, William B., and Herminia Din. “The Educational and Economic Value of Online Learning for Museums.” The Journal of Museum Education 35, no. 2 (2010): 161–72. ↩︎

  2. Ennes, Megan, and Imani Lee. 2021. “Distance Learning in Museums: A Review of the Literature”. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 22 (3), 162-87. ↩︎

  3. ibid. ↩︎

  4. “Cocktails with Curator” The Frick Collection, accessed October 2nd, 2022 https://www.frick.org/interact/miniseries/cocktails_curator ↩︎

  5. Whole. Radio GAMeC GameC Bergamo. Bergamo, Italy, March 22, 2020. https://www.gamec.it/en/radio-gamec/. ↩︎

  6. Ennes, Megan, and Imani Lee. 2021. “Distance Learning in Museums: A Review of the Literature”. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 22 (3), 162-87. ↩︎

  7. Crow, William B., and Herminia Din. “The Educational and Economic Value of Online Learning for Museums.” The Journal of Museum Education 35, no. 2 (2010): 161–72. ↩︎

  8. ibid. ↩︎

  9. ibid. ↩︎

  10. ibid. ↩︎

  11. ibid. ↩︎

  12. “Cocktails with Curator” The Frick Collection, accessed October 2nd, 2022 https://www.frick.org/interact/miniseries/cocktails_curator ↩︎

  13. Radio GAMeC GameC Bergamo. Bergamo, Italy, March 22, 2020. https://www.gamec.it/en/radio-gamec/. ↩︎

  14. Ennes, Megan, and Imani Lee. 2021. “Distance Learning in Museums: A Review of the Literature”. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 22 (3), 162-87. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v21i3.5387. ↩︎

  15. Pinson, Jerald. “IMuseum: The Difficulty with Distance Learning during a Pandemic.” Florida Museum. Florida Museum of Natural History, December 2, 2021. https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/imuseum-the-difficulty-with-distance-learning-during-a-pandemic/. ↩︎

  16. Sullivan, Margaret, “Online Museum Exhibitions as Virtual Resources.” Knowledge Quest (blog), August 13th, 2020 https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/online-museum-exhibitions-as-virtual-learning-resources/ ↩︎

  17. ibid. ↩︎

  18. Collins, James. “The Importance of Online Museums for Modern Education.” Ecobnb. Last modified March 30, 2021. https://ecobnb.com/blog/2021/03/online-museums-modern-education/ ↩︎

  19. “Distance Learning Database!” “American Alliance of Museums. Accessed November 22, 2022. https://sites.google.com/view/museum-distance-learning/home?pli=1 ↩︎

  20. ibid. ↩︎

  21. ibid. ↩︎

  22. “The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Museum Resources, E-Learning, and Online Collections” MCN. Accessed November 22, 2022. https://mcn.edu/a-guide-to-virtual-museum-resources/ ↩︎