Q & A On TAKING TRIPS TO MUSEUMS ONLINE
Technology Question and Answers
Q: Can I visit art museum exhibits online?
A: Yes! If you and your students can't visit great museums in person, log on to the Internet and give electronic exhibits a try. Many notable museums display the works of the Masters online. Browse masterpieces by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Matisse, and other great artists. Then gather art resources, including time lines, biographies, critiques, and information on various art forms. Get started with these Web sites:
www.getty.edu
www.metmuseum.org
www.guggenheim.org
www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
www.lacma.org
www.clevelandart.org
www.frick.org
www.artmuseum.net
www.moma.org.
Q: Which e-museums are kid-friendly?
A: For an engaging, entertaining, and educational site, visit the American Museum of Natural History (http://ology.amnh.org). It's well-designed, interactive, and kid-friendly. Easy-to-read information pages on the sciences (astronomy, genetics, etc.) also include fun follow-up activities.
At the National Gallery of Art (www.nga.gov/kids/kids.htm), kids can take online "Adventures in Art" and get ideas for projects. After sorting the colors and shapes in Kandinsky's works, they can explore Martin Johnson Heade's rain forest landscapes, view current and past exhibits, and tour the sculpture gardens.
At the Children's Museum of Indianapolis (www.childrensmuseum.org), have kids click "Fun Online" to read how paleontologists merge art and science to create a "kinetosaur" and the "Arts Workshop" to see structures and meet modern sculptors.
At the Art Institute of Chicago (www.artic.edu/aic/kids/heykids.html), kids can "Ask Artie" questions about art. This site covers artists and their work, and offers some of the best lesson plans on the Web! Other kid-friendly sites are the Franklin Institute of Science (www.fi.edu) and the Children's Discovery Museum (www.cdm.org).
Q: Which museums provide images online?
A: The American Museum of Photography (www.photographymuseum.com) teaches about photographic processes, from salt prints to daguerreotypes, and offers primary resources on African Americans, landscapes, and other topics! The Smithsonian Institution, made up of many museums, has images as well as portraits of historical figures. Start at the Smithsonian's main site (www.si.edu), and then click "Museums" to narrow your search.
Q: Which natural history and science museums have online exhibits? A: American Indian, mineral and gem, and Jurassic fossil exhibits can be viewed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh).
Ethnographic images can be found at www.orinoco.org which features more than 350 artifacts from the Venezuelan Amazon region. Kids can view objects of aboriginal daily life, tools (fishing hooks, brooms, bow and arrows), and sacred objects including masks and amulets.
Other online natural history museums are the American Museum of Natural History (www.amnh.org), the Field Museum (www.fmnh.org), the Dallas Museum of Natural History (www.dallasdino.org), Florida's Museum of Natural History (www.flmnh.ufl.edu), and the Royal Ontario Museum (www.rom.on.ca).
For great science e-museums, visit San Francisco's Exploratorium (www.exploratorium.edu) and the Academy of Natural Sciences (www.acnatsci.org).
Q: Are there alternatives to e-museums? A: Try electronic museum exhibits on CD-ROM. The World's Greatest Museum (Grolier Interactive), Great Museums of the World (Topics Entertainment), and Virtual Art Museum (Fogware Publishing) allow kids to view exhibits from the Louvre, the Prado, and other great museums.
Q: Where can I learn more about e-museums? A: Check http://vlmp.museophile.com, www.musee-online.org, and www.museumspot.com.
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