Summary points from the October 21, 1997 meeting discussion:

• Art organizations should consider State Educational Frameworks for K-12 curricular strands before creating on-line educational materials.

• Adult portions of the BAM/PFA web site were interesting and useful to teachers, especially the web pages concerning past exhibitions such as Rosie Lee Tompkins, Masks of Venice and Urban Revisions.

• Teachers can guide younger students in web-based learning and research activities by creating a classroom web page that contains the links to pre-selected web sites.

• Most students don't have patience to stay on-task and focused for an extended period of time while doing assignments that use the Internet or a search engine.

• Student attention spans for reading on-line text and essays are very short, consequently on-line assignments should be brief.

• Web sites that have well-designed and captivating graphics, age/grade-appropriate text, audio, and interesting content are better for holding student attention and interest.

• Art organizations creating on-line educational materials may need to consider three styles of language to accommodate their diverse audience: language for general public or adults, language for teachers using the site for curriculum needs, and language for students who are doing on-line interactive curricular activities or research.

• Information concerning permanent and short-term museum exhibitions are valuable to K-12 teachers, even if the objects have been removed from the museum.

• Tech support at the K-12 school is essential - teachers need assistance solving routine problems with software, hardware, maintenance, and the implementation of collaborative university projects that use technology.

• University sponsored technology programs for K-12 schools need to factor in a Tech support person as part of the basic project requirements.

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Exploration of promising practices of arts-based web sites: A look at the Rural ArtsNet, an Internet-based educational program of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, with special focus on the Claes Oldenberg portion, its on-line resources and related educational materials / activities

Summary points from the November 23, 1997 meeting discussion:

• Lots of content, good images, multicultural, good teacher lesson plans and nice appendix for other sites and links.

• More teacher lesson plans would improve site.

• Navigation was difficult - too many link choices, path was hard to follow, chaotic.

• Useful links and information was buried deep in the site, and easy to overlook.

• In general, users need well-designed associative guides or hierarchical layout of information, and a good menu bar on each page.

• Arts organizations should not have their web sites reflect the physical structure of the building in gallery map form -- which is confusing to on-line visitors unfamiliar with the physical museum. These graphics are also problematic if they take a long time to load on the user's web browser. Representing physical space in cyberspace doesn't work well.

• Educational web sites should try to compile a list of links to other reputable web sites to expand upon a given topic. This is very useful for teachers.

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Performing arts institutions: A survey of on-line educational resources

Summary points from the January 20, 1998 meeting discussion:

• None of the institutions listed above had substantial interactive or contextual educational on-line resources at the time of this case study.

• Kravis Center for the Performing Arts web site failed to make it clear where the building was located. Others were difficult to discern as well.

• Performing arts and museum web sites should clearly state where the physical institution is located geographically (country, state, region, city).

• It is hoped that performing arts institutions and museums will create substantial K-12 educational materials for TEACHERS--resources that can be downloaded and used to enhance curriculum.

• It is also hoped performing arts institutions and museums will create ample K-12 educational materials for STUDENTS--resources that can be downloaded and printed for classroom activities, and educational components that can be used for on-line interactive learning activities.

• Performing arts organizations deal with ephemeral art forms, but could still create on-line educational materials for teaching about lighting, set design, choreography, and the nature of live performance, as well as how to watch various kinds of dramatic and musical performances.

• Contextual and photographic on-line educational information about actual performances would be very useful for teachers, even if students don't witness the actual performance described by "virtual" means.

• Performing arts institutions and museums might adopt a teacher resource component on the web site, where teachers can access and/or add lesson plans in an expanding archive. This bank of curricular educational and intellectual resource materials would grow over time and could be a substantial aid for busy teachers.

• Even the best on-line educational materials are limited, and need thoughtful application and coordination by a good K-12 teacher.

• Live experience cannot be captured in virtual form. Rather, virtual experience can help inform and interest viewers.

• Virtual presentation of the arts is not likely to have an adverse impact on attendance at the physical cultural arts institutions and live performances. The real experience will continue to be more attractive than the virtual representation.

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Commercial on-line educational resources for K-12 teachers and students: An exploration of two web sites

Summary points from the February 17, 1998 meeting discussion:

• Commercial educational sites were not deemed to have better educational value than non-commercial sites. On-line educational services appeared restrictive, limited to in-house or on-site material, and thus did not take advantage of the vast array of educationally oriented and diverse sites that exist at large throughout the Internet.

• Teachers preferred non-commercial sites at reputable institutions such as
  Getty ArtsEdNet http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/,
  University of Oregon Media Literacy http://interact.uoregon.edu/medialit/homepage, and other locations that contained materials developed by real, working teachers, like those found at SCORE (Schools for California Online Rescourcs for Education) http://scorescience.humboldt.k12.ca.us/ In general, non-commercial sites that teachers liked had a quality of honesty, with academically sound resources--without the feel of commercialism.

• The Edscape site seemed to have a "pop journalism" quality, attempting to be attention getting for younger audiences. The site seemed to have a gimmicky feel to parts of it.

• The Getty's ArtsEdNet web site was highly praised by our teacher group, and stands as an example of a non-commercial site which as extensive resources and good links to related resources outside the ArtsEdNet site.

• Using case-sensitive passwords and login names for commercial sites proved troublesome, a significant point of frustration in the process of entering such commercial sites.

• Good educational on-line materials need to be cross-referenced so they can be found by teachers using a variety of search terms and directories (SCORE site).

• Art organizations need to adopt standardized naming conventions, so information can be found easily by individuals and using search engines and a variety of search terms.

• Commercial K-12 educational resource web sites would do well to have a mission statement that expresses the political and educational orientation of the institution sponsoring the site. This mission statement would help educators and users understand the underlying objectives and political bearing the site may have. Some sites may have ties with industry, political parties or foreign countries which impart an "informational flavor" or limited perspective. Teachers may want to know this orientation up-front before they send students onto the web site to do activities.

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Two topics: Commercial on-line educational K-12 resource sites (continued) and media literacy on-line: Exploration of three web sites

Topic 1: Commercial On-line Education Services (continued)

Topic 2: Media Literacy Projects on the Internet

Summary points from the March 24, 1998 meeting discussion:

• The Media Literacy On-line Project at University of Oregon received the best review by all project members because of its quality of content, interpretive presentation, diversity of information, design, links and related resources.

• For students, often Internet searches for information are hit-and-miss and many sites have questionable subject matter or educational material that is inaccurate or untrue. Media literacy training may help students learn to discriminate quality web sites from poor ones. Teachers want organized lists of links (grouped by subject matter, historical era, state Framework curricular strand, etc.) to "approved" educational sites.

• Teachers desire educational resource web sites on topics related to media literacy and other subjects, even if the sites are teacher-centered and do not have a student component. Teachers want to access on-line materials and lesson plans.

• Ideally, on-line materials should be comprehensive and well organized by topics, themes, curricular strands, grade level, and so on. Moreover, each cohesive set of organized materials should be tied to ONE (or at most two) web page of links--NOT a series of disjointed links from one web site to another in a chaotic, non-linear fashion that makes thematic information gathering laborious and bothersome.

• Teachers need lesson plans as a cohesive unit. While providers of on-line lesson plans may include links to other relevant sites and materials, the main idea should be to synthesize dispersed information so that it becomes a unit and specifically tied to the educational topic at hand.

• A standard of scholarship needs to be adopted to label educationally sound web sites so teachers can recognize them as being academically and pedagogically approved, especially in relationship to State Framework guidelines.

• Educational on-line materials need to be interconnected with broad and specific thematic issues. For example, collections of art need to be tied with political, historic and social periods and trends. This way, instructors teaching about 18th century history can search the Internet and find organized bodies of art that represent the creative manifestations of that period. Conversely, teachers instructing students about the 20th century art history could tap into well-prepared banks of 20th century historical, social and political information, events and developments coexisted and influenced the art of that period. Cultural institutions need to work carefully together in a highly organized manner to devise this kind of linked system for on-line interrelated teaching materials.

• Art related educational material needs to be tied together with larger thematic issues, such as history, so that it can be useful for teaching the art history of a period, or vice versa.

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Two topics: Educational CD-ROM: * The Orlando Museum of Art Pre-Columbian Art Multimedia CD and general discussion of performing arts / museum-to-school collaborative multimedia projects--the pros and cons of using CD-ROM's or the Internet

* The Orlando Museum of Art "Pre-Columbian Art" CD-ROM features dozens of QuickTime Virtual Reality movies of Pre-Columbian art objects. The CD was the outgrowth of a collaborative project between the Orlando Museum of Art and the Orange County Public Schools, with all interactive multimedia features having been created by high school students using HyperStudio software.

Summary points from the April 21, 1998 meeting discussion:

• The Orlando Museum of Art Pre-Columbian Art CD project in itself represents a very positive example of museum to school collaboration. While the CD has flaws, the idea and the project itself is to be commended, especially since the multimedia features were made by high school students.

• Performing arts organizations and museums should examine the Pre-Columbian Art CD project as a fairly successful model of collaboration, and embark on their own collaborations with schools where technology and the Internet can enhance learning and exciting projects--for mutual benefit for the K-12 school, students, arts organizations and staff.

• The Orlando Museum of Art Pre-Columbian Art CD while interesting from a QTVR stand point, lacked deeply thought-provoking and memorable content. The CD needed more information about each piece of art, beyond basic didactic text and narration.

• It is better to have fewer QTVR objects, and more flavorful descriptions for each. "Quality" of interpretation and content, over "quantity" of objects.

• The CD's user interface was confusing and a major flaw. In the opening menus there were no clear descriptions of the CD's contents, the art it contained, nor were there instructions on how to navigate the CD or how to use the QTVR features. This kind of information should not be "buried" on a credits page, but accessible "up front" so first time users can quickly become acclimated to the CD's entire package.

• The CD was not cross-platform, which limited its usefulness.

• Certain menus on the CD had underlined words that were not hypertext links--a poor design since underlined text has become universally recognized as a linking feature for electronic and on-line materials. Such projects should not invent new design features which conflict with established formats for digitized materials.

• In general, our group feel CD-ROM's may become a good medium for housing school related computer-based projects, especially when read and write CD-ROM burners become more affordable. The CD is cheap, durable, and can contain a substantial amount of information. Students may one day turn in final reports and multimedia culminating school projects on CD instead of in printed or disk form.

• Teachers like the idea of portable information (CD's) and find the Internet can be problematic for accessing and transferring large amounts of electronic material because of limitations in access to Internet servers, server crashes, and slow modem connection. A CD only needs a CD-ROM drive and computer--without the additional logistics of getting on-line.

• Museums may want to explore possibilities of offering technology workshops to K-12 teachers. If these offerings could meet state educational requirements, they could help teachers learn how to use technology-based museum educational materials while fulfilling part of the K-12 Clear Credential tech training requirements, and other aspects of career training for teachers.

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