Journal #2

Reissman, R (2009). Museums in the classroom. Learning & Leading with Technology, Retrieved 02,15,09, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200902/

In her article, Rose Reissman delves into the realm of online museums. Although not the same as visiting a museum in person, online museums can provide interesting activities and artifacts to add to a student's research. Probably the greatest positives how convenient (anytime & anywhere) and cheap (free) they are. Reissman briefly introduces four different resources for exploring museums online.

The first, Resource Central - Museum Resources, provides links to hundreds of museums, from the San Diego Aerospace museum to the Pilgrim Hall Museum. With such broad access to so many museums, students could create a museum out of their classroom, creating brochures, banners, exhibits and souvenirs all from research they get from the websites found on this search engine.

The second online resource introduced is Great Museums, which allows students to design their own "cybermuseum" and also get creative ideas for classroom exhibits. I can see this website being helpful alongside Resource Central - Museum Resources, mentioned above.

If students need to find museum definitions to better understand, they would find the next resource very helpful, Discovering the Museum Glossary.

Lastly, Reissman introduces a great website, specifically for the educator, Going to a Museum? Resources for Educators. This website will help teachers plan step-by-step how to use museums as "vehicles for student-centered content and investigatory collaborative learning".

Question #1 How would using an online museum be more beneficial than a real museum? Although nothing can beat the experience of visiting a real museum, there are some benefits to using an online museum. Students would have access to more museums in a much shorter amount of time than visiting each one in person. Another benefit would be the cost savings of not having to pay admission to each museum that you get to visit online. In this economic climate that is a huge benefit.

Question #2 What are some assignments you could do using online museums? I love the idea of a classroom museum using information gathered at online museums. One assignment I would do would and Impressionist art assignment. I would have students study about Impressionistic art and gather samples to display and then have them create their own Impressionistic art to display alongside. Another would be to have the students select a culture and gather information and artifacts that represent that culture to display in a classroom museum.