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Museums and the Web

An annual conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line.

Evaluating Modern Teachers Online and MoMA’s New Teaching and Learning Pilot Site

Abstract

 

In 2006, Modern Teachers Online was built as a repository for MoMA’s printed teacher guides. Since then, video has become a powerful educational tool for both students and informal learners. In addition, Web 2.0 and RSS have led to the disaggregation of materials - things that were once bundled together are now offered piecemeal (think: songs on iTunes instead of whole albums).  Also, since everyone can now publish to the web, teachers are confronted with a wealth of resources for learning materials and lesson plans (Lesson Planet, TeachersPayTeachers.com, etc.).

In light of these developments, in 2010, the education department began a process of rethinking the content and structure of our teacher resources. We imagined re-purposing the teacher materials to make them useful for informal learners, disaggregating them, and combining them with other, existing resources on MoMA.org. Lastly, we imagined a site that was not segregated within the education section of the website.  We began by surveying the existing research and did two days of action research with both teachers and informal learners to try out our ideas.

In the Fall of 2010, we created a pilot site (http://education.moma.org/moma/learningresources/) in response to our findings. We used Haiku, the Learning Management System we use for delivering our online courses. The site, on Abstract Expressionism, re-purposed materials from an existing teacher guide, from the Abstract Expressionist New York exhibition sub-site (moma.org/abex), and from the in-gallery experience of the exhibition (audio-tours). However, it also incorporated new materials designed specifically for teachers, including slideshows, Powerpoints, worksheets, teaching tips, and discussion questions as well as existing content from Modern Teacher Online.

Our demonstration at Museums and the Web will include both the results of our research and the pilot site that we built in response to our findings.

 

 

Type: 

Demonstration - show your project

Authors

bethrharris's picture
Biography pending.
LisaMazzola's picture
Lisa Mazzola, Assistant Director, School and Teacher Programs, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Lisa Mazzola is the Assistant Director of School and Teacher Programs within the Education Department of the Museum of Modern Art where she develops and administers programs and resources for K- 12...
colleen_brogan's picture
My name is Colleen Brogan, I am the Digital Learning Project Coordinator at The Museum of Modern Art. I develop and manage MoMA Courses Online, collaborate on all Education department video and website initiatives, and work with Digital Media, Marketing, and Development on exhibition and...