1994 was a key transition year for digital
learning in museums, for there were two
major developments, apparently independent
and unrelated, but that were subsequently
to converge. Within the museum, the audio
guide, for many years a technological
upstart attempting to make an impact,
went digital (Proctor and Tellis 2003).
And, on 4 July 1994, The Natural History
Museum became the first UK museum
website to go live, even if the material
was initially an online brochure rather
than a learning resource (Shaw 1995).
Today, museums provide a plethora of
different kinds of learning activities.
Anderson (1999) carried out an extensive
survey and lists 23 categories, ranging
from ‘Services for children’ (most frequent)
to ‘Publications and resources for minority
communities’ (least frequent). It is an
indication of the rapid pace of development
that, while approaches such as
printed/audio-visual information,
publications and trails all feature in
the list, there is no specific reference to
online or other digital provision. However,
it requires little more than a cursory
glance at the 24 Hour Museum site
(www.24hourmuseum.org.uk) or that of its
offspring Show Me (www.show.me.uk), to
appreciate how rapid and widespread the
growth of museum learning opportunities
online has been in the early years of the
21st century.
It is perhaps not surprising, but still rather
startling, that the pace of development
since the mid-1990s has been so rapid. As
little as three years ago, the museum
community was still busy alerting itself to
the fact that it would be necessary to alter
its documentation practices to engage and
to address the pedagogic needs of diverse
audiences (Cameron 2001). The role of the
museum both in respect of education, and in respect of its response to digital
technologies for learning, therefore, is one
which should be seen as emerging within a
complex set of sometimes competing
objectives. The aim of this review is to step
back for a while from these debates and to
ask, after ten years of experience in this
area, how digital technologies might best
be used to support the learning
opportunities that museums can offer.
1.2 SCOPE OF THE REVIEW
The focus of this review is on those
aspects of learning provided by museums
and galleries through the use of digital
technologies (Fig 1.1). It does not consider
other functions that digital technologies
fulfil in the museum sector, such as
publicity or administration, except where
developments such as collections
management systems have a potential
impact on opportunities for learning. It is,
however, necessary to include some
consideration of the wide range of informal learning opportunities that are available
| Formal & informal
learning with ICT –
online, in school,
home, workplace |
|
Other formal &
informal learning –
exhibitions, guides,
printed resources
etc |
 |
| Collections management, record-keeping, digital exhibitions etc |
|
Fig 1.1 Scope of the review
|
|
through other non-digital modes and
media within the museum environment.
Similarly, it is not possible to completely
isolate learning in museums and galleries
from that in other informal situations.
1.3 SOURCES
Literature reviews conventionally
concentrate on material published in
books and peer-reviewed journals.
However, while there is a body of work on
learning in museums (see, for example,
Hein 1998; Falk and Dierking 2000;
Moussouri 2000; Moussouri 2002; MLA
2004) and a rapidly growing literature on
the wider use of digital technologies for
learning – especially in classrooms –
there is little such work available at the
intersect of all three domains. (The annual
conference Museums and the Web
(Bearman and Trant 1999 –2004) does
increasingly feature papers relating to
learning although the focus remains
primarily technical rather than pedagogic.)
Work cited in this review therefore includes
a number of conference presentations and
several online evaluation reports, as well
as material produced by museums and
galleries themselves and by government
and other agencies.
1.4 DEFINITIONS
1.4.1 Museums and galleries
Of course, everybody knows what a
museum is. Dictionaries define it as a
place where objects important to art,
history or science are studied, conserved
and displayed. The International Council
of Museums concurs, and emphasises
collections. These definitions, however,
rule out science and discovery centres,
which don’t have collections (except, it can
be argued, of exhibits). And the 24 Hour
Museum (www.24hourmuseum.org.uk),
which has neither place nor objects. And a
gallery? A place where art is exhibited. Yet
museums describe individual rooms as
galleries, whatever they display, while in
science centres they’re often halls or
simply rooms. And what should we make
of the concept of an interactive museum?
Is it the case that museums – or at least
individual galleries within museums – can
either display objects or be full of specially
built interactive learning machines?
This is neither mere semantics nor
pedantry. It is a reminder that the museum
is not a single, homogeneous entity, but a
diverse range of institutions with a dual
purpose: the creation of new knowledge
(research) and its dissemination
(education). Once these were intimately
integrated, both functions were dependent
upon the collections. With the advent of
compulsory education, however, learning
was seen as the preserve of schools and
museums were seen as places merely for
the storage of existing (potentially ancient)
knowledge (Arnold 1996). Only now in
the 21st century does digital technology
potentially permit the reunification of
these roles.
In this review, the terms museum and
gallery are interpreted widely, to include
any collection or display with public
access, and we use the term museum
throughout as shorthand. Although it does
not specifically exclude them, there is little
emphasis on two particular types of
museum where digital technology and
learning would be expected to play a
synergetic role – as a search engine might
identify. One group comprises those
museums dedicated principally to the
development of computers themselves,
eg Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn
(www.hnf.de) or the Computer Museum
in Boston, now part of the Museum of
Science (www.mos.org/tcm/tcm.html).
The other group is of those museums
established within and on behalf of
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