Museums and online training: an opportunity created by Covid-19.
If there is one thing that the whole world has learnt in the last year is that e-conferencing and e-learning are here to stay. In the last 14 months, we have all overdosed in Zoom meetings, subscribed to more conferences and seminars than there are hours in the day, and have grappled with working life and teaching from home [weforum.org].
Museums are included in the long line of cultural institutions that have raced to develop a wide range of online resources, from revamping museum websites and social media accounts to online galleries, podcasts, and webinars. Embracing these resources has allowed museums to increase the accessibility of their collections, improve public access to information, and introduce new ways of experiencing the museum through sharing and creating stories.
One resource that has been found to be missing is online learning. Before 2020 and the Covid pandemic very few museums around the world offered online courses for school children or for adults. This is despite evidence that online courses are a democratic way of achieving interaction between museums and people [Dysthe et al]. And that online courses are considered to promote plurality, reach, and novelty in experiencing museums in a world population that is becoming increasingly digital.
Are there any challenges to online museum learning? Of course, there are. The pandemic has been a spotlight on issues such as unreliable internet access, lack of access to technology, lack of technical training, and even the plain simple division between the haves and the have-nots. From the museum point of view, creating the learning materials and developing costs for online courses are a worry at a time when all institutions suffer from depletion of funds.
While museums can not do much about reliable internet access or technology-based problems it is important to remember that they have extensive Education and Learning departments offering a range of educational programmes and resources. With these resources at hand, there are relatively low costs of developing online courses, which can be mostly connected to marketing and promotion. To further reduce costs well established online course providing platforms can be used instead of developing their own systems. Revenue can be gained back from charging relatively low fees for the courses.
Learning is one of the core objectives of any museum. In the words of Sanderhoff: “Museum education is all about creating frameworks for people to engage and experience personal growth in the encounter with art and culture and the questions they raise”.
Since March 2020, almost every continent has experienced effects associated with Covid-19 lockdowns. Schools have closed, students have continued their learning via online aids, adults have been seeking ways to stimulate themselves and update their skills. In view of this unexpected event and its consequences, it is to be expected that online courses will become even more popular. The time is now!
Sources
Olga Dysthe, Nana Bernhardt & Line Esbjør, Dialogue-Based Teaching. The Art Museum as Learning Space.
Merete Sanderhoff, The Canon, The Web and the Long Tail, DOI: 10.1080/10598650.2017.1338427.
·
