building communities of interest with museum collections, libraries, and archives
DESCRIPTION
Part 3: “Smithsonian Teachers Night” is an annual event designed to celebrate education and to strengthen bonds between local audiences and Smithsonian experts. In an attempt to scale up this experience by connecting experts with collections, and making those connections visible and interactive, SCEMS developed a series of online interactive education conferences examining one topic through the diverse historical, artistic, cultural, and scientific collections and expertise residing within the Smithsonian. These conferences provide a unique perspective on topics such as Abraham Lincoln (examining not only history, but artistic interpretations, and scientific explorations that defined this period), but also provide an opportunity for new communities within the Smithsonian to form, for example, bridging together the often-segregated professional worlds of art and science. These new communities proved to be a powerful draw as they connected with communities of interest, students and the general public, from more than 100 counties participating.TRANSCRIPT
Smithsonian Teachers’ Night
Smithsonian Online Conference Series
Darren MilliganSmithsonian Center for Education
and Museum Studies
MCN2010October 30, 2010
2009
2009Abraham Lincoln
turns 200
"Education [is]... the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”Abraham LincolnMarch 9, 1832, First Political Announcement
Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
“LINCOLN’S DEATHBED: IMAGES OF A MARTYRED PRESIDENT”
“STAMP STORIES: PHILATELIC IMAGES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR”
“MR. LINCOLN’S AIR FORCE”
“THE ENDURING EMANCIPATION: FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA”
“PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHY DURING THE CIVIL WAR”
The huge potential of informal education is now within our grasp through online interactions with curators, scholars and historians. Web technologies now make geographical distances disappear; teachers and students all over the world are able to learn from each other in sustained dialogue.
Educators in my hometown of Douglas, Georgia, have joined the ever-growing Smithsonian Community of Learners. As Douglas high-school teacher Lorraine Fussell said of the Lincoln conference: "Most valuable to my students (and to me) were the responses [by Smithsonian …] to several of our comments. In high-school lingo, that was 'cool.'”
-G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Results
45% - educators
16% - students16% - parent
13% - museum people
challenges
