Premier's Xstrata Coal Rural and Remote Education Scholarship
Outreach: Museums, Institutions and online learning for rural and remote
education
Alan Elliott
Centre for Learning Innovation
Sponsored by
PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS
Rationale
The rationale for the study was to explore the actual and potential educational benefits of
major overseas and Australian museums and other institutions for the development and
delivery of quality Human Society and Its Environment learning and teaching resources
for rural and remote learners. Museums and institutions are responsible for unique
collections of objects, images, documents and information that have the power to enrich
the curriculum, promote cultural development and outreach. Significant geographical,
social and economic barriers have previously hindered access to these unique resources
but digital technology and innovative learning design are removing these barriers. My
overseas and Australian contacts also revealed a willingness to share knowledge and
openly discuss developments, issues and problems.
Museums and institutions
My research study targets the following museums and institutions: the British Museum;
the Victoria and Albert Museum; Archaeological Museum in Athens; the American
School of Classical Studies in Athens; the Thera Foundation (London and Athens); the
Thera Museum (Santorini); the Hong Kong Department of Education; the Hong Kong
Museum of Art; the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Museum.
Methodology
The preliminary phase of the research:
 Set up an e-mail network of professional educators, web developers,
archaeologists, museologists and curators working for or connected with major
museums and institutions in the UK, Greece and Hong Kong. This network
confirmed actual interviews during the trip, provided relevant research
suggestions and set up a professional dialogue.
 Involved the analysis of existing online resources at the selected museums and
institutions.
The trip phase focused on:
 a series of interviews in the UK, Greece, Hong Kong and Australia, usually
recorded with an ipod and an italk microphone
 a short tour of significant historical sites of southern England
 observation and examination of museum collections, the collection of digitised
images for an image bank
 the establishing of an on-going dialogue with museums and institutions which
could promote outreach for learners after the trip.
I designed five focus questions for collecting comparable research information across the
museums and institutions:
 What materials does the museum or institution provide for public access - such
as, public programs. Outreach programs?
 What methods/infrastructure does the museum or institution use to organise,
design and deliver these materials - on site and beyond?
 What types of learning materials have been and will be produced to support any
of the museum or institutions programs?
 What issues and problems have been discovered and anticipated with this type of
educational program?
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 How relevant and useful is this type of program for school and remote students?
This report can only highlight some of the key aspects covered with each museum and
institution.
England
The British Museum
Open to the public since 1759 in Bloomsbury, the British Museum has increasingly
expanded its outreach through online bulletins and virtual tours, comparative timelines,
interactive games and 3D models. In an interview with Paul Clifford, ICT Projects
Office, a number of issues affecting outreach were revealed. He explained that the elearning educational multimedia team had been ‘downsized’ recently and this increased
pressure on his time and the integration of technology into the education program. The
museum had been focusing on: the major exhibitions like the Terracotta Warriors which
‘surfs the wave of enthusiasm for China’; the relaunch of its website (Compass), e-commerce
plans and outreach exhibitions to places like Hong Kong.
The example of quality outreach which I have concentrated on here is the BM’s
collaboration with Nippon Telegraph and Telecommunications East (NTTE) to produce
online resources for ancient history for the Japanese and British curriculum. They include
relevant visual and textual historical sources using 3D models and objects from the
British Museum collection. Paul Clifford commented, “A phenomenally successful and great
piece of outreach. People write in and say how fantastic the sites are. They are used internationally”. I
have used this British Museum curriculum initiative as the core of a public access Centre
for Learning Innovation online Sites2see resource at
htttp://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/web/Sites2See_6442/ to translate some of my
research into a practical online project for rural and remote learners. Despite its tradition
and wealth of artefacts the British Museum is obviously struggling with how far to go
into technology and education beyond the museum and with the prohibitive costs of
insurance and management concerns for travelling exhibitions. However, it is aware of its
reputation and is committed to provide excellent online outreach to remote areas.
The Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum is more than a museum. It is an art and design
institution. Founded in 1852 in South Kensington, it houses over four million artefacts
on around 12 acres. My London network helped me to arrange the meeting with Stuart
Frost, a Gallery Educator. The meeting occurred in a room with the walls covered in the
design plans for the new Medieval and Renaissance wing for which he is the education
consultant. Although the substantial new gallery with a permanent exhibition of 11
gallery spaces and 1800 objects is his present responsibility he was clear on the
importance of outreach for all museums.
He explained that the Vand A has small travelling exhibitions within Britain but not
overseas. However, it recognises the power of digital online resources to ‘transform peoples
understanding of the objects in the galleries’and like many other well funded museums has
thousands of objects already online. Remote learners can download and use any image
on the website where the copyright belongs to the Vand A up to A5 hi-resolution size
(http://www.vam.ac.uk/school_stdnts/stdnts_lecturers/student_guide/index.html).
Stuart has an archived monthly blog which can be followed at
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1265_frost/?page_id=2. More and more
objects will be available for study online in the future. Stuart would like an interactive
online resource like those produced at CLI for the new galleries.
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BBC - History On-Line Team
Although the BBC is a corporate institution, the work of its History and Social
Science/Humanities teams of the BBC is an excellent example of the new directions and
commitment to engage ‘the casual browser and the total enthusiast’ in innovative
learning.
Richard Cable, web editor, organised a staff meeting of his History Online team for me
at the BBC complex at White City. During the discussions about the types of online
materials which the team develop and their outreach implications it was clear that their
resources are not directly curriculum based and primarily designed to support BBC
television history programs. A website to support a linear history TV series on Ancient
Egypt has however ‘spawned’ the globally popular ‘Death in Saqqara’ game-based
resource. The BBC market research indicates that 98 percent of 16 year olds play some
form of gaming. Richard said it was ‘learning by osmosis’ with the Roman game ‘CDX’
embedded in aspects of Roman history. Adobe provided the bandwidth and showcased
it for access outside Britain. The team explained that the online site has ‘evolved
organically’.
They agree it was a “real mish-mash of online materials” so it was re-organised into four
or five categories. The team was critical of their 9/11 ‘recent history’ materials but the
History Trails were re-versioned and are popular. The BBC History online magazine has
podcasts and well researched articles. These are rich, engaging resources which reach
remote and rural areas through their public access web pages, message boards and
accessibility helpers.
University College London and The Petrie Museum, University College London
The University College is sprawling complex in South west London. It is the major
university of inner London and also includes the Centre for the Advancement of
Learning and Teaching (CALT) and the Petrie Museum. In the interview with Sally
MacDonald, Vice provost and ex-manager of the Petrie Museum, she emphasised the
role of outreach.
At the Petrie Museum, Tracey Golding outlined the museum’s schools program just
before a school group arrived. The museum has about 80,000 objects, making it one of
the greatest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world but it is
cramped into two crowded rooms. We discussed the role of the web site,
http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/, the schools program and its version of outreach. It has
two outreach officers who offer services for African and African-Caribbean schools,
Egyptian and Sudanese schools and groups. The Petrie aims to provide translations of
the site in Arabic and Spanish in the future. One online teaching and learning resource is
a 3000 web resources, ‘Digital Egypt resources for universities’, a free online resource for
university learning and teaching, introducing all periods and themes of Egypt, with 3D
reconstructions of selected sites represented in the Petrie Museum. This illustrates the importance of
external funding by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), which works to
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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS
support the innovative use of ICT in education and research. But the main corporate
plan is to rehouse the collection in a larger permanent space fitting the unique collection.
UCL has acquired the Arius 3D colour scanner from the Canadian company and two
grants to look at University use of 3D scanning for education, interpretation and
conservation. Sally MacDonald confirmed there was a big debate in the UK presently
about how museums don’t share their collections enough. There is pressure to send
objects on tour but insurance is prohibitive. So maybe a 3D image of an object before it
left and when it arrived would free up costs and encourage sharing access. The potential
for improved student engagement, virtual sharing of objects and curatorial museum
training should be a positive for future outreach learning.
UK tour
The tour of southern England focussed on observation, analysis of sites and collection of
print and digital materials at the following places: Henry VIII’s Hampton Court,
Churchill’s grave at Bladon, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the remains of Tintern
Abbey in Wales, Shakespeare’s Stratford on Avon, Georgian Bath, The Roman baths at
Bath, Stonehenge, the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and Leeds Castle. The outreach
highlights were the observation of the student visits at the Roman baths at Bath and the
digital images collected for HSIE CLI projects.
Professor Doumas
Having recently finished a digital online and CD resource at CLI on Bronze Age Thera, I
was pleased to be able to discuss the outreach promotion of work at Akrotiri, on
Santorini with Professor Christos Doumas, the Director Excavations at Akrotiri since
1975. Unfortunately the archaeological site has been closed for over a year because of a
tragic partial roof collapse during the construction of a new biospheric cover. However,
Professor Doumas outlined the design and purpose of the exhibition of artefacts at the
new Thera Museum on Santorini and the special permanent Thera exhibition at the
National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Doumas explained that unfortunately there
are presently no public programs but they have tried to organise the exhibition in such a
way that even a child in Primary school can easily understand and can be self-guided.
However, the Thera Foundation (http://www.therafoundation.org/) has designed a
detailed website for outreach which covers archaeological, scientific and cultural aspects
of the Theran world.
Greece
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
In many ways this is an old museum embarking on new ways. It houses the national
collection of Greece with thousands of unique objects from the past. The Director of the
National Archaeological Museum, Dr. Nikolaos Kalt organised a meeting with Ms Naya
Dalakoura, archaeologist-museologist. Naya is one of two recently appointed
museologists trained at the University of Leicester to oversee the educational aspects of
the museum. After four visits over a twenty year period it was a delight to see and enjoy
the ‘new’ museum, with refurbished exhibition rooms and displays. The next phase
(2008-2009) is a separately funded program to detail and digitise the artefacts. The
emphasis of the education program is with primary school students and the competition
with display and administration space for school/community learning space for visits is
an issue.
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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS
The museum has recognized the importance of the web for the promotion of the
hundreds of museums and historical sites throughout Greece and has redesigned its web
pages. More and more digitized objects will be online from 2009.It will be some years
before NAMA would reach an online standard like that of the other national museums
of Europe. The enthusiasm for outreach was obvious but the restraints from planning
priorities and education staffing is a reality for Naya and her colleague.
The American School of Classical Studies.
The American School of Classical Studies primarily aims to teach, survey, excavate and
publish the history and archaeology of Greece. It has been responsible for the
excavations at the Athenian Agora This is a case study option for the History Extension
course and the site and uncovered artefacts are the crucial evidence for our
understanding of the development of ancient Athenian history through politics, society
and culture. Jan Jordan, Secretary of Excavations, confirmed that the main purpose and
style of their work limited outreach to a volunteer excavation program for students and
the publication of the interpretation of findings. The new web site provides panoramic
views and enough detail for a virtual tour.
Hong Kong
At a meeting at Kowloon Tong Education Centre, Chris Wardlaw, Deputy Secretary of
Education, and an education team covered the unique outreach situation of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is highly internet connected but in need of more interactive learning
materials. The connectivity was critical during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome) epidemic which caused nearly 300 deaths in 2003. They successfully used the
HK Education City School website to reach their students who had to work for almost
three months from home. Hong Kong Education City (HKEC) is a joint project by the
Education Department and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Beginning as a
learning resource collection it has become a one-stop website and evolved into an allround portal of content, services, and activities to teachers, students, and parents. The
goal is to develop a more interactive and engaging portal for its users.
Hong Kong Museum of Art
An interview with Jennifer Chu, museum educator and curator, and a guided tour of ‘The
Treasures of the British Museum’ exhibition was a particularly relevant way to end the
overseas research. The museum saw this as a perfect example of outreach, museum
partnerships and a way for diverse communities to begin to share in the cultural
ownership of the rich and inspiring collections of distant museums.
Australia
After studying the outreach materials overseas it was heartening to identify and discuss
the excellent online materials at the National Museum of Australia. David Arnold,
Manager, Education, confirmed the importance of educational partnerships, with
Ryebuck Media to produce the award winning interactive Australian History Mysteries and
the Commonwealth parliamentary Education Office for the innovative student video
interviews of Talkback classroom. The NMA has unique outreach materials for Australian
History which support the quality teaching criteria and are ideal for rural and remote
learners searching for engaging and relevant learning packages.
Conclusions
It is now more realistically possible for key museum and institutions to provide outreach
which is educationally significant because of a number of critical developments:
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
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At the same time as museums and galleries are focusing on stewardship and
improving access to displays for actual visits, they are applying technology to virtual
visits from unrestricted distances. This ranges from electronic information bulletins
to increased awareness and appreciation of educational collections through online
detailed analysis of digitised objects. All my focus museums and institutions in the
UK, Greece, Hong Kong and Australia show this commitment.
Museums are expressing more of an interest in developing educational initiatives with
individual learners and schools. History trails and other thematic approaches provide
a type of useful global curriculum connection. The BBC History online site promotes
a popular gaming approach to History topics.
The digitisation of artefacts and source material has become more widespread in
recent years due to improvements in online technology. The UCL work with 3D
colour scanning illustrates the future direction and quality to expect.
Since 2004 schools isolated by distance in western NSW have been equipped with
video and web conferencing technologies which allow them to connect with other
places in Australia and the world, for example, guest speakers that students can
interview. While museum educators negotiate and argue for more in house students
space the online space is expanding for outreach learners. The aspects of outreach
which will realistically promote learning for rural and remote students is not the
occasional blockbuster touring exhibition but online innovations such as: thematic
grouping of objects, improved digital images, better attached curatorial notes,
podcasts, live vodcasts from museum galleries, virtual tours and high quality topic
guides and engaging interactive activities.
At the ‘ideal’ end of the spectrum, while many rural and remote students in NSW are
reliant upon distance delivery of education and a portal like the Centre for Learning
Innovation’s TaLe, it would be beneficial for the Department of Education and
Training to develop contacts and partnerships with museums and other institutions
to capitalise on their interest in collaboration and the rich educational potential
offered by new modes of learning such as 3D images, video conferencing, interactive
white boards and increasingly savvy ICT learners.
Outreach Weblinks
London
British Museum
Homepage: http://www.britishmuseum.org/; CLI Sites2See: Ancient at the British
Museum http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/web/Sites2See_6442/
Victoria and Albert Museum
Stuart Frost’s blog - an archived monthly blog which can be followed at
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1265_frost/?page_id=2
Downloadable website images of objects from the V&A's collections in hi-resolution
format to use in your projects, and may be used free of charge and up to A5 size
http://www.vam.ac.uk/school_stdnts/stdnts_lecturers/student_guide/index.html
University College London Museums and Collections
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/ A Conference on 3D Colour scanning
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/research/3Dscanning/conference2008/

Petrie Museum http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/index2.html Digital Egypt for
universities (at the Petrie Museum); http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/
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BBC History Online
Homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ The 'Death in Sakkara' Gallery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/launch_gms_death_sakkara.shtml

Egyptian section http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/

World War2 – The Peoples’ War http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/
UK tour - The tour of southern England focussed on observation, analysis of sites and
collection of print and digital materials which could contribute to outreach resources at
the following places: Henry VIII’s Hampton Court, Churchills grave at Bladon, the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the remains of Tintern Abbey in Wales, Shakespeare’s
Stratford on Avon, Georgian Bath, The roman baths at Bath, Stonehenge, the Royal
Pavilion at Brighton and Leeds Castle.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford http://www.ashmolean.org/
Stratford Upon Avon http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/
Bath http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/
Stonehenge http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/
The Royal Pavilion Brighton http://www.royalpavilion.org.uk/
Greece
The American School of Classical Studies. The Agora at Athens
Jan Jordan, Secretary of Excavations; http://www.agathe.gr/
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
http://www.athensguide.com/archaeology-museum/index.htm
Akrotiri Santorini
http://www.travel-to-santorini.com/place.php?place_id=40
Museums on Thera (Santorini) http://www.santorini.gr-santorini.com/museums/
Hotel Loucas http://www.loucashotel.com/
Thera Foundation (http://www.therafoundation.org/)
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Bureau of Education
http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=2&langno=1
Hong Kong Museum of Art
http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Arts/english/intro/eintro.html
Australia
National Australia Museum http://www.nma.gov.au/index.html
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The education section http://www.nma.gov.au/education/
Have a look at one of the Australian Mysteries. These were done in partnership with
Ryebuck Media http://www.australianhistorymysteries.info/ahm2/casestudies.html
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