Selecting Distance Learning Technologies

This post focuses on a scenario involving a west coast high school history teacher who desires to expose students to artwork presented on the east coast.  The school and the museum are separated by a great distance.  The teacher does not want to deny the students the educational experience, so the teacher seeks an alternative route.  Even though students cannot attend the actual museum, an online visit or tour would expose them to the facilities.  In addition, the instructor wanted students to interact with a curator and to view two distinguished pieces from each location.  The teacher consults with an instructional designer on the best approach to engage in the online distance learning experiences.

As the instructional designer I would assess the situation to determine if the online tour of the museum would be beneficial to the students.  First, I would research how previous educators implemented the process.  Next, I would examine limitations using an online tour and review suggested approaches for improved results.  Also, I would consider the possibility of if other museums will provide equivalent learning experiences beside the two prominent New York locations.  Is it necessary that students interact with the curator?  After considering the previous thoughts, I would suggest two options to connect with museums: 1) mobile apps and 2) Google+ application.

After completing a search for scholarly journal articles, I found the topic to be limited, possibly because of the newness of the field.  My online search of art museums conducting distance learning tours, generally charge a fee.  Understandably, this would cover the connection charge and expert knowledge of the presenter. 

Fortunately, I found a link with an open source continually collaborating with project managers and technology experts to use mobile devices to connect classrooms with museums.  The Museum Wiki (n.d.) website shares a wealth of information on mobile apps.  One case study, Enhancing Group Tours with iPads (Isaacson, Krueger, McGuire, Sayre, & Wetterlund, 2012), noted interactivity with distance learners as they toured the facilities and collaborated not just with scheduled groups.  The project research explored:  1) Response – visitor, tour guide, museum educator, and museum-wide; 2) Obstacles – political and psychological, physical, and technical; and 3) Logistics - training needs, material preparation and organization, most effective materials, and hardware management (Isaacson et al., 2012).  Using an iPad, a tour guides moved about the facilities while providing detail about the operation.  The tour guide prepares an organized collection of images readily available so users can access items without a lengthy search at a website similar to artsconnected.org (n.d.).

Google+ offers integration with mash-up tools for video conferencing, sharing documents, and photo galleries. Gopnik (2011) explains that Google’s think tank, a group of technological experts and project managers, explores ways to bring the museums to the public without physically traveling to the location.  Over 17 art museums offer access using Google+, which includes high-tech zooming capabilities. Because of copyright issues, not all paintings may be viewed using technology.  This two-way streaming video would be a free medium for the instructor to utilize.   

In closing, use of the mobile apps and Google+ at the current designated museums may offer equivalent experiences needed for the history teacher’s class.  The instructional designer would have to communicate with the museums to determine if new options have been added to make the learning experience more purposeful.  Presenting “activities alone cannot lead to learning,” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright,  & Zvacek, 2012, p. 153) so careful planning of what work is necessary.

References

Arts Connected.  (n.d.).  Arts connected: Tools for teaching the Arts.  Retrieved from http://www.artsconnected.org/.

Gopnik, B. (2011, February 11).  Google Takes Street View Inside 17 Museums for Virtual Tours. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/01/google-virtual-museum-tours-will-technology-overpower-the-art.html.

Isaacson, A., Krueger, L., McGuire, S., Sayre, S., & Wetterlund.  (2012, October 12).  Enhancing Group Tours with the iPad: 2012 Updates and Discoveries.  Retrieved from http://mobileappsformuseums.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/enhancing-group-tours-with-the-ipad-2012-updates-and-discoveries/.

Museum Wiki.  (n.d.) Retrieved from http://wiki.museummobile.info/category/mobile-faqs

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.